The  Andover  Trial. 


In  the  Matter  of  the  Complaint  against 
Egbert  C.  Smyth  and  others,  Professors 
of  the  Theological  Institution  in  Phillips 
Academy,  Andover. 


Professor    Smyth's    Argument, 

together  with   the   Statements    of  Pro- 
fessors   Tucker,    Harris,    Hincks,    and 
Churchill 


BX  7243  .A62  S59  1887 
Smyth,  Egbert  Coffin,  1829- 

1904. 
The  Andover  heresy 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2009  with  funding  from 

Princeton  Theological  Seminary  Library 


http://www.archive.org/details/andoverheresyinmOOsmyt 


The  Andover  Heresy. 


IN  THE  MATTER  OF  THE  COMPLAINT  AGAINST  EGBERT 

C.   SMYTH   AND    OTHERS,    PROFESSORS   OF   THE 

THEOLOGICAL  INSTITUTION  IN  PHILLIPS 

ACADEMY,   ANDOVER. 


PROFESSOR  SMYTH'S   ARGUMENT, 

TOGETHER   WITH 

THE  STATEMENTS   OF   PROFESSORS  TUCKER, 
HARRIS,    HINCKS,    AND    CHURCHILL. 


BOSTON: 

CUPPLES,    UPHAM    &    COMPANY, 

BTJjc  ©III  Corner  Bookstore, 

283  Washington   Street. 
1887. 


JFrankltn   ^rfS2  : 

RAND   AVERY   COMPANY, 
BOSTON. 


IN   THE    MATTER   OF   THE   COMPLAINT   AGAINST 
EGBERT   C.    SMYTH   AND   OTHERS, 

Professors  of  the   Theological  Institution  in  Phillips  Academy 
in  Andover. 


May  it  please,  your  Reverend  and  Honorable  Body  : 

By  the  Statutes  of  the  Associate  Foundation  it  is  made 
your  duty  "  to  take  care  that  the  duties  of  every  Professor 
on  this  Foundation  be  intelligibly  and  faithfully  discharged, 
and  to  admonish  or  remove  him,  either  for  misbehavior,  het- 
erodoxy, incapacity,  or  neglect  of  the  duties  of  his  office." 
By  the  Statutes  of  the  Brown  Professorship,  which  I  have 
the  honor  to  hold,  this  Foundation  is  made  "  subject  to  visi- 
tation "  in  the  same  manner  with  the  Associate  Foundation. 
In  the  libel  filed  by  the  complainants  and  which  defines  the 
present  issue  I  am  not  charged  with  misbehavior,  incapacity, 
or  neglect  of  official  duty.  The  sole  issue  is  one  of 
"  heterodoxy." 

I  desire  to  call  your  attention  to  the  fact  that  I  am  not 
charged  with  "  neglect  of  the  duties  of  my  [his]  office."  It 
is  certainly  possible  that  a  Professor,  enamored  of  some  new 
opinion  neither  out  of  "harmony  with"  nor  "antagonistic 
to  "  the  Creed  of  the  Seminary,  might  spend  so  much  time 
in  maintaining  and  inculcating  it  as  to  neglect  his  duty  in 
respect  to  other  truths.  If  this  were  the  accusation  in  the 
present  case  I  am  confident  that  I  should  have  no  difficulty 
in  meeting  it.  But  wide  as  is  the  range  of  the  present  libel 
it  nowhere  ventures  upon  such  an  aspersion.     I  stand  before 


3rou,   even   in   these   calumnious    days,   absolutely   without 
reproach  from  any  quarter  in  this  particular. 

I  am  charged  before  you  with  "  heterodoxy  "  —  nothing 
more,  nothing  less,  nothing  other.  If  I  am  guilty  of  "  hetero- 
doxy  "  you  can  remove  or  admonish  me  as  the  issue  of  this 
trial,  according  to  your  judgment  and  discretion.  If  I  am 
not  guilty  I  am  entitled  to  a  clear  acquittal. 

It  has  been  said  that  this  is  not  a  trial  for  heresy,  but  for 
a  breach  of  trust.  A  suit  for  a  breach  of  trust  would  lie 
more  properly  against  the  Trustees  or  Treasurer  of  the  Semi- 
nary. Not  a  cent  of  the  Seminary  Funds  comes  into  my 
hands  save  as  I  receive  it  from  said  Treasurer,  who  acts  by 
order  of  the  Trustees.  If  there  has  been  a  breach  of  trust  in 
the  management  of  the  funds  the  custodians  and  disbursers 
of  those  funds  are  guilty  of  this  offence,  and  there  are  avail- 
able and  natural  methods  of  prosecution.  The  arraignment 
of  five  professors,  and  the  interruption  of  their  work  in 
the  midst  of  a  term  of  study,  is  not  one  of  these  natural 
methods.  This  is  a  trial  for  heresy,  or  it  is  nothing.  The 
violation  of  solemn  promises  which  is  charged  is  simply  an 
issue  of  interpretation  of  a  creed.  The  only  charge  in  essence 
and  in  form  is  the  accusation  of  "  heterodoxy." 

It  may  indeed  be  suggested  in  qualification  of  what  I  have 
said,  that  "heterodoxy"  in  the  present  instance  is  to  be  de- 
termined by  an  unusual,  particular  and  remote  standard,  and 
that  this  criterion  is  not  the  test  which  would  now  be  im- 
posed, so  that  I  might  be  orthodox  according  to  the  rule 
which  would  be  applied  to-day,  and  yet  heterodox  according 
to  the  rule  prescribed  in  the  Seminary  Creed.  I  do  not  admit 
that  such  a  distinction  is  applicable  in  the  present  case.  I 
am  advised  by  eminent  legal  authority  that  the  word  "  het- 
erodoxy "  in  the  Statutes  cannot  be  thus  limited  and  de- 
fined. But  irrespective  of  this  objection  I  must  say  that  I 
think  better  of  our  Creed,  better  of  the  Founders  of  the  Semi- 
nary, than  such  a  contention  would  admit.  The  Creed  bears 
traces,  doubtless,  of  controversies  which  no  longer  interest 
the  public,  and  unadjusted  and  even  irreconcilable  concep- 
tions linger  in  some  of  its  phrases.     But  to  whatever  criti- 


cisms  it  is  fairly  exposed,  I  "  hold,  maintain,  and  inculcate," 
Mr.  President,  that  it  does  not  bind  the  Seminary  to  an  an- 
tiquated phase  of  belief,  or  to  the  "  warts  and  wens  "  which 
a  living  theology  knows  how  to  get  rid  of,  but  on  the  con- 
trary, that  it  logically  leads  to  those  adjustments  of  orthodox 
thought  and  belief  which  are  now  necessary,  and  in  general 
leaves  an  open  path  for  such  as  the  future  may  require. 
Such  a  statement  doubtless  will  strike  with  surprise  some 
who  are  the  friends  of  doctrinal  progress.  There  is  abroad  an 
opinion  which  is  founded,  I  am  persuaded,  upon  a  'priori  rea- 
soning, and  not  upon  scientific  examination.  It  is  like  certain 
theories  of  inspiration  which  are  derived  from  what  men 
think  the  Bible  ought  to  be  and  not  from  what  it  is.  It 
reasons  thus :  The  human  mind  has  made  doctrinal  progress 
since  the  century  opened.  A  creed  written  eighty  years  ago 
must  be  antiquated.  That  depends.  An  a  priori  "  must  be," 
science  has  taught  us,  is  not  always  an  "is  so."  It  depends 
on  who  says  it,  still  more  on  what  has  been  said.  I  am  not 
a  eulogizer  of  the  Andover  Creed.  Clothed  in  phraseology 
which  it  requires  much  special  learning  accurately  to  inter- 
pret, composed  as  a  compromise,  designed  to  admit  under  it 
a  great  variety  of  philosophical  theories  and  beliefs,  expres- 
sive at  certain  points  by  its  silences  even  more  than  by  its 
utterances,  balancing  traditional  statements  by  novelties  of 
doctrine,  inserting  some  words  to  bar  against  regression  and 
others  which  make  progress  necessary,  confessing  the  author- 
ity of  Scripture  but  not  failing  to  emphasize  the  constant 
revelation  in  creation,  providence  and  redemption,  it  cannot 
be  rightly  understood  without  a  more  careful  study  than  its 
critics  have  usually  given  to  it,  and  whatever  else  it  may  be 
I  am  persuaded  that  it  is  not  the  symbol  of  an  antiquated 
phase  of  orthodoxy,  nor  the  chain  and  ball  of  an  imprisoned 
theology.  I  appear  before  you  of  necessity  to  make  personal 
answer  to  charges  most  of  which  are  utterly  false,  charges 
some  of  which,  if  true,  would  justly  expose  me  to  the  accusa- 
tion of  heresy  under  the  standards  of  a  catholic  orthodoxy, 
but  I  have  a  larger  contention  and  a  deeper  interest.  I  de- 
sire to  secure  by  your  decision  for  those  who  may  come  after 


me  the  rights  of  a  reverent  scholarship  in  the  study  of  God's 
word ;  the  liberties  of  thought  and  life  which  are  necessary 
to  fruitful  biblical  study ;  the  opportunity  for  that  spontane- 
ity and  freedom  in  the  discovery  and  acquisition  of  sacred 
truth,  without  which  the  articles  of  any  creed  however  ex- 
cellent can  never  become  the  reality  of  present,  personal 
convictions  and  the  living  springs  of  knowledge,  but  must 
always  remain  the  dry  and  barren  deposit  of  a  dead  past.  I 
believe  the  result  at  which  I  aim  expresses  the  only  correct 
interpretation  of  the  duties  and  rights  of  a  Professor  in  Ando- 
ver  Seminary,  as  these  obligations  and  liberties  are  defined 
and  guaranteed  in  the  Creed  and  Statutes  of  the  Founders. 

Before,  however,  I  venture  out  upon  this  larger  field  of 
thought,  I  desire  to  meet  the  complainants  upon  the  nar- 
rowest line  which  they  may  select.  I  shall  attempt  to 
show  that,  even  when  every  indication  from  the  Founders  is 
disregarded  which  points  to  that  nobler  conception  of  the 
function  of  the  Creed  at  which  I  have  just  hinted,  the  pres- 
ent complaint  is  still  futile  and  void. 

In  order  to  convict  me  under  the  present  libel  the  com- 
plainants must  prove  that  I  hold  beliefs  which  are  incon- 
sistent with  a  valid  acceptance  of  the  Creed,  or  that  I  have 
violated  my  solemn  promise  "that  I  will  maintain  and  incul- 
cate the  Christian  faith  as  expressed  in  the  Creed  ...  so 
far  as  may  appertain  to  my  office,  according  to  the  best 
light  God  shall  give  me,  and  in  opposition  to "  various 
heresies  and  errors  specified  and  unspecified,  ancient  and 
modern. 

The  first  requirement  pertains  to  belief,  the  second  to  offi- 
cial conduct  in  matters  of  faith. 

To  establish  my  guilt  under  the  first  requirement  the  com- 
plainants must  prove  at'  least  two  things  :  that  I  hold  an 
alleged  belief,  and  that  this  belief  is  contrary  to  the  Creed. 
As  I  have  intimated  it  will  be  contended  in  my  behalf  that 
there  is  still  a  further  condition  of  the  validity  of  the  accusa- 
tion, viz  ,  that  this  particular  belief  be  shown  to  be  heterodox 
by  a  yet  higher  and  more  continuous  and  potent  standard  of 
orthodoxy.     Without  waiving  this  point  I  shall  not  press  it 


in  what  I  here  present.  I  am  content  to  insist  at  the  present 
stage  of  the  argument  upon  the  two  conditions  first  named, 
the  necessity  of  proving  that  I  hold  what  is  charged,  and. 
that  such  a  belief  contravenes  the  Creed. 

To  prove  my  guilt  under  the  second  requirement,  —  that 
of  official  conduct,  —  still  more  must  be  established  than  un- 
der the  first.     My  official  promise  must  be  considered  in  all 
its  parts,  and  as  a  whole.     No  one  can  rob  me  of  the  convic- 
tion that  whatever  have  been  my  deficiencies  I  have  endeav- 
ored to  maintain  and  inculcate  so  far  as  pertains  to  my  office 
"  the  fundamental  and  distinguishing  doctrines  of  the  gospel  " 
as  expressed  in  the  Creed,  "according  to  the  best  light  God" 
has   given  me,  and   in  opposition   to  the  various  errors  by 
which  history  shows  that  these  truths  have  been  confronted. 
I  have  preferred,  however,  to  try  and  show  what  neglected 
element  of  truth  heresy  may  be  thriving  upon,  and  how  it 
may  be  healed  by  a  larger  truth,  rather  than  merely  to  an- 
tagonize it.     I  submit  to  your  careful  consideration  this  test 
of  the  validity  of  any  proof,  advanced  by  the  complainants,  of 
my  "  heterodoxy"  as  a  teacher.    It  is  a  three-fold  cord.    Each 
strand  is  necessary.     It  is  weak  as  a  broken  thread  if  either 
fails.     It  must  be  shown  that  I  have  "maintained  and  in- 
culcated," that  is,  taught  purposely  and  urgently,  what  is 
charged ;  that  I  have  done  this  in  my  work  as  a  Professor  in 
the  Seminary;  and  that  this  deed  is  a  violation  of  my  prom- 
ise to  teach  the  Christian  faith  as  expressed  in  the  Creed 
"  according  to  the  best  light  God  shall  give  me,"     I  ask  you 
in  simple  justice  rigidly  to  apply  this  test  to  what  on  this 
point  the  complainants  may  offer  as  proof. 

You  will  pardon  me  also  if  I  request  you  to  bear  in  mind 
that  I  am  not  on  trial  before  you  as  an  editor  of  the  Andover 
Review,  or  as  a  joint  author  of  a  volume  called  Progressive 
Orthodoxy  published  by  Messrs.  Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co., 
4  Park  Street,  Boston.  I  would  not  draw  any  fine  or  arti- 
ficial distinction  between  my  utterances  in  the  Review  and 
in  the  Lecture  Room.  No  honest  man,  certainly  no  trustwor- 
thy religious  teacher,  can  hold  a  double  and  mutually  contra- 
dictory set  of  opinions,  one  for  his  pupils,  another  for  his 


8 

own  privacy  or  for  some  other  use.  If  I  have  taught  in  the 
Review  what  is  contrary  to  the  Creed,  I  shall  not  plead  that 
I  have  been  more  reserved  or  utterly  silent  in  my  lectures. 
I  have,  however,  a  point  to  make  which  may  assume  impor- 
tance. It  is  this.  In  the  field  of  literature  I  am  amenable 
to  your  jurisdiction  only  so  far  as  it  can  be  proved  that  what 
I  publish  is  contrary  to  the  Creed,  or  actually  violates,  or 
necessarily  and  evidently  tends  to  violate,  my  obligations  as 
Brown  Professor  of  Ecclesiastical  History  in  the  Theological 
Institution  in  Phillips  Academy  in  Andover.  In  a  volume 
or  review,  for  instance,  I  am  perfectly  at  liberty  to  dwell  ad 
libitum  on  a  single  topic.  I  might  co-operate  in  a  temperance 
journal,  or  one  devoted  to  Civil  Service  Reform,  and  write 
on  one  or  the  other  of  these  subjects  every  month,  provided 
I  neglected  none  of  the  duties  of  my  office.  Much  more  on 
some  living  theological  or  religious  question,  under  the  same 
condition.  But  it  would  be  contrary  to  the  duties  of  my 
office  to  give  such  prominence  to  these  questions  in  my  lec- 
ture room.  So  far  as  the  Review  or  Progressive  Orthodoxy  is 
now  before  you,  the  issue  is  not  what  prominence  is  given  to 
a  subject,  but  whether  any  thing  is  taught  which  shows  a 
belief  or  beliefs  contrary  to  the  Creed,  or  a  violation  of  my 
promise  as  to  conduct  in  my  office. 

Indulge  me  in  one  other  preliminary  remark.  I  regret 
that  the  number  and  variety  of  the  charges  in  the  libel  make 
it  impossible  for  me  to  be  brief.  I  am  charged  with  hetero- 
doxy upon  nearly  all  the  distinguishing  doctrines  of  our  Holy 
Religion.  The  indictment  seems  to  be  constructed  on  the 
plan  of  somebody's  note-books  of  a  course  of  lectures  in  Sys- 
tematic Theology,  embracing  the  leading  topics  from  the 
Being  of  God  to  the  final  resurrection  and  the  contrasted 
eternal  states.  One  of  the  signers,  in  the  original  complaint, 
wrote  "  Trustee  "  under  his  name.  He  is  a  Trustee  of  the 
Seminary,  of  many  years'  standing.  Being  a  clergyman  he 
has  been  very  often  appointed  by  his  associates  to  attend  my 
theological  examinations.  I  have  almost  invariably,  from 
year  to  year,  examined  on  the  Church  doctrine  of  the 
Trinity.     He  knows,  or  is  inexcusable  if  he  does  not  know, 


what  I  have  taught.  He  knows,  or  ought  to  know,  that  I 
have  taught  from  year  to  year  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity, 
the  Church  doctrine ;  and  that  I  "  hold,  maintain  and  incul- 
cate "  it,  as  I  have  done  all  along.  I  am  thankful  that  it  does 
not  devolve  upon  me  to  occupy  your  time  in  trying  to  explain 
why  he  has  deemed  it  necessary  to  sign  his  name,  in  the  pro- 
fessed interest  of  honesty  of  subscription,  to  a  charge  that  I 
teach  a  modal  Trinity,  a  charge  which  he  knows  full  well,  or 
is  inexcusable  if  he  does  not  know,  is  baseless  and  false,  but 
unless  he  and  his  associates  withdraw  this  charge  and  others 
equally  preposterous,  I  must  take  time  to  refute  them.  For- 
tunately for  the  demands  upon  your  time  the  strength  of  the 
list  is  in  inverse  ratio  to  its  length. 

Believing  that  you  will  appreciate  the  necessity  laid  upon 
me  of  reviewing  in  detail  and  with  thoroughness  these 
numerous  accusations,  and  reminding  you  again  of  the 
two-fold,  or  three-fold  necessities  of  evidence  adequate  to 
establish  any  one  of  these  charges,  I  now  proceed  to  their 
consideration. 

The  first  particular  charge  is,  that  I  "hold,  maintain  and 
inculcate  that  the  Bible  is  not  '  the  only  perfect  rule  of  faith 
and  practice,'  but  is  fallible  and  untrustworthy  even  in  some 
of  its  religious  teachings." 

What  has  there  been  in  the  evidence  submitted  on  this 
point  by  the  complainants  which  proves  either  that  I  hold 
what  is  charged,  or  that  there  is  any  thing  in  the  article  or 
citations  adduced  which  affords  any  presumption  that  I  thus 
teach,  or  that  any  thing  which  I  teach  or  for  which  I  am 
responsible  is  contrary  to  the  Creed  ?  I  have  not  been  able 
to  detect  a  scintilla  of  evidence  for  either  of  these  positions, 
each  and  all  of  which  must  be  established  or  the  charge 
falls. 

Take  first  the  article  in  the  Revieiv  entitled  "  The  Bible 
a  Theme  for  the  Pulpit."  How  or  where  does  this  show 
that,  so  far  as  appertains  to  my  office,  I  fail  in  upholding 
the  supreme  authority  of  sacred  Scripture?  In  what  lies 
the  proof  that  in  the  chapel  pulpit,  or  in  my  lecture  room, 


10 

or  in  any  public  utterance  whatsoever,  I  oppose  the  decla- 
ration of  the  Creed  "that  the  word  of  God  contained  in 
the  Scriptures  of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments  is  the  only 
perfect  rule  of  faith  and  practice"?  Not  only  is  no  connec- 
tion of  this  sort  traced  by  the  complainants,  they  have  done 
nothing  to  lay  the  foundation  for  a  presumption  or  sugges- 
tion in  favor  of  such  a  connection.  For  there  is  no  expres- 
sion anywhere  in  the  article  of  the  thing  charged.  It 
contains  not  a  syllable  adverse  to  the  requirement  of  the 
Creed.  On  the  contrary,  the  article  was  written  in  the  in- 
terest of  the  doctrine  affirmed  in  the  Creed.  Its  occasion 
was  the  discovery  that  some  ministers,  recognizing  that  many 
of  their  hearers  hold  to  the  old  theory  that  the  Bible  in 
every  part  is  equally  authoritative  and  in  every  statement 
is  infallible  truth,  and  knowing  also  that  such  a  proposition 
cannot  be  maintained,  out  of  prudential  motives  have  with- 
drawn from  the  teachings  of  the  pulpit  any  instruction  as  to 
what  the  Bible  is  as  the  only  perfect  rule,  and  how  it  has  be- 
come such  a  rule.  The  writer  endeavored  to  enter  into  the 
thoughts  and  feelings  of  such  ministers,  to  appreciate  the 
reasons  which  influence  them,  to  state  those  reasons,  in  order 
to  point  out  to  them  that  there  is  a  better  way,  and  one 
which  it  is  the  duty  of  the  ministry  of  intelligent  churches 
to  follow.  What  now  is  the  use  made  of  this  article  by  the 
complainants?  First,  five  sentences  are  detached  from  that 
portion  in  which  the  embarrassments  of  the  preacher  are 
depicted.  Then,  a  skip  is  made  to  the  close  of  the  article 
and  a  sentence  picked  up  and  so  connected  that  its  object  is 
precisely  reversed.  It  was  written  as  a  suggestion,  at  the 
close  of  a  brief  article,  how,  by  pursuing  a  particular  method 
of  pulpit  discussion,  men  disturbed  by  the  results  of  modern 
critical  study  may  be  helped  to  a  firm  and  immovable  con- 
viction of  the  trustworthiness  and  perfection  of  sacred  Scrip- 
ture as  a  rule  of  faith  and  practice.  It  is  quoted  as  though 
it  were  designed  to  favor  a  treatment  of  the  Bible  "preju- 
dicial to  its  sacredness  and  authority." 

One  is  reminded  that  there  is  still  need  of  the  irony  with 
which  a  bishop  of   the  English   Church  two  centuries  ago 


11 

discoursed  upon  "The  Difficulties  and  Discouragements  which 
attend  the  Study  of  the  Scriptures  in  the  way  of  Private  Judg- 
ment; Represented  in  a  letter  to  a  young  clergyman."  He 
will  subject  himself  to  much  toil  in  study,  will  be  likely  by 
the  results  of  his  labor  to  disturb  the  peace  of  the  church 
and  bring  upon  himself  the  reproach  of  being  a  heretic,  "  a 
term  which  there  is  a  strange  magic  in.  ...  It  is  supposed 
to  include  in  it  every  thing  that  is  bad ;  it  makes  every  thing 
appear  odious  and  deformed ;  it  dissolves  all  friendships,  ex- 
tinguishes all  former  kind  sentiments  however  just  and  well 
deserved.  And  from  the  time  a  man  is  deemed  a  heretic,  it 
is  charity  to  act  against  all  the  rules  of  charity ;  and  the 
more  they  violate  the  laws  of  God  in  dealing  with  him,  it  is, 
in  their  opinion,  doing  God  the  greater  service.  ...  A  search 
after  truth  will  be  called  a  love  of  novelty.  The  doubting  of 
a  single  text  will  be  scepticism  ;  the  denial  of  an  argument 
the  renouncing  of  the  faith.  ...  In  a  word  orthodoxy 
atones  for  all  vices  and  heresy  extinguishes  all  virtues.  .  .  . 
Turn  yourself  to  the  study  of  the  heathen  historians,  poets, 
orators  and  philosophers.  Spend  ten  or  twelve  years  upon 
Horace  or  Terence.  To  illustrate  a  billet-doux,  or  a  drunken 
catch  ;  to  explain  an  obscene  jest ;  to  make  a  happy  emendation 
on  a  passage  that  a  modest  man  would  blush  at,  will  do  you 
more  credit  and  be  of  greater  service  to  you,  than  the  most 
useful  employment  of  your  time  upon  the  Scriptures ;  unless 
you  can  resolve  to  conceal  your  sentiments,  and  speak  always 
with  the  vulgar.  .  .  .  You  have  two  ways  before  you.  One 
will  enable  you  to  be  useful  in  the  world,  without  great 
trouble  to  yourself.  .  .  .  The  other  .  .  .  will  draw  on  jrou  an 
insupportable  load  of  infamy,  as  a  disturber  of  the  church 
and  an  enemy  to  the  orthodox  faith,  and  in  all  probability 
end  in  the  extreme  poverty  and  ruin  of  yourself  and 
family.  Which  God  forbid  should  ever  be  the  case  of  one 
who  has  no  other  views  but  to  dedicate  his  life  to  God's 
service." 

Who  has  forgotten  the  abuse  which  was  rained  upon  Pro- 
fessor Stuart  for  his  biblical  studies  ?  Writing  (Oct.  7,  1813) 
to  Dr.  Spring,  the  son  of  a  principal  author  of  the  Seminary 


12 

Creed,  he  says  —  referring  to  the  "exegesis  of  Canticles:" 
"  For  my  humble  self,  if  I  doubt  whether  the  forty-nine  senses 
can  all  be  applied  to  this  book  .  .  .  and  must  be  a  heretic  on 
this  account,  I  say  with  Vitringa,  Ego  sum  in  line  hceresi.  .  .  . 
"I  certainly,"  he  continues,  "do  not  think  it  worth  the 
trouble  of  writing  this  to  save  myself  from  the  imputation  of 
heresy,  among  those  who  make  all  divinity  heretical  that  is 
not  triangular.  .  .  .  '  What,  said  Father  Paoli  to  his  brother 
Jesuit,  who  was  less  dexterous  in  combating  for  the  mother 
church  than  himself.  What  did  Scarpi  say  at  the  meeting 
of  the  order?  —  He  said  he  doubted  whether  the  infallibil- 
ity of  the  Church  could  be  predicated  of  the  Pope  alone,  or 
whether  it  resided  in  an  ecumenical  council.  —  Most  abom- 
inable! and  what  did  you  tell  him? — I  told  him  that  the 
Pope  was  the  successor  of  St.  Peter. —  Well,  and  what  said 
he  ?  —  He  said  that  he  did  not  read  in  the  New  Testament 
of  Peter's  having  appointed  any  successor,  and  challenged  me 
to  produce  the  passage.  —  Challenged  you  to  produce  the 
passage !  —  Yes ;  and  I  was  not  able  to  recollect  it.  — 
Able  to  recollect  it !  why  did  you  not  tell  him  that  the 
Fathers  believed  as  we  do? — I  did.  —  And  what  said  he? 

—  Why,  that  the  Fathers  were  not  the  Pope,  and  so  were 
not  infallible.  —  Why  didn't  you  tell  him  that  he  would 
endanger  the  faith  of  the  whole  Church  by  such  innovations  ? 

—  I  did  try  to  argue  with  him  about  them.  —  Argue  with 
him !  you  stupid  blockhead  (fatuus  Diaboli)  —  argue  with 
him!  Why  did  you  not  call  him  Heretic  .  .  .?  These  here- 
tics are  to  be  confounded  by  blows,  not  by  arguments  (fusti- 
bus  non  argumentis  confutandos).'' 

"  Thus,"  adds  Professor  Stuart,  "  believes  brother  Romeyn, 
as  truly  as  Father  Paoli,  and  for  as  good  a  reason.  If  you 
think  strange  of  this,  you  have  only  to  recollect  that  two 
pennyweights  of  brains  are  a  sufficient  apparatus  for  the 
purpose  ot  guiding  a  march  through  the  whole  round  of  hard 
names  and  abusive  insinuations,  while  it  needs  several  pounds 
to  manage  an  argument."  .  .  . 

May  it  please  your  Reverend  and  Honorable  Body  I  have 
searched  diligently  through  the  printed  specifications  under 


13 

this  charge  about  the  Scriptures,  and  have  listened  carefully 
to  catch  any,  even  the  faintest,  suggestion  of  some  utterance 
for  which  I  am  responsible,  which  militates  in  the  least 
against  the  divine  authority  of  the  Scripture,  but  I  have  not 
discovered  it.  Where  is  it  found?  Is  an  attempt  to  show 
how  a  divine  revelation  has  come  to  us,  an  attack  upon  rev- 
elation ?  The  most  cursory  reading  of  either  of  the  articles 
named  or  cited,  shows  by  constant  incidental  expressions, 
and  by  its  whole  structure  and  design  that  the  mind  of 
the  writer  assumes  that  we  have  in  the  Bible  a  trustworthy 
and  authoritative  expression  of  the  mind  and  will  of  God. 
The  complainants  have  not  read  to  understand  even  that 
which  is  perfectly  patent  and  plain,  much  less  to  mark  and 
inwardly  digest.  They  have  been  in  search  for  means  of 
attack,  on  a  rampage  for  accusations.  Sentences  are  twisted 
from  their  connections,  quoted  by  jumping  backwards  and 
then  forwards,1  divorced  from  qualifying  declarations  in  the 
immediate  context,  begun  with  capitals  by  omission  of  im- 
portant connections  and  obliteration  of  every  indication  that 
in  the  book  they  are  not  thus  independent.  It  is  easy  to  make 
a  slip  in  citation,  as  experience  shows,  and  no  generous  critic 
will  deal  severely  with  a  mere  inadvertence.  But  where 
errors  are  numerous,  where  they  .always  favor  one  side,  where 
they  are  artificial,  they  are  properly  regarded  as  evidence  of 
lack  of  candor.  That  the  quotations  are  adduced  for  the  pur- 
pose of  specification  does  not  help  the  matter.  They  are  none 
the  less  unfair  citations. 

I  will  adduce  instances  in  point. 

The  third  quotation  from  Progressive  Orthodoxy — com- 
mencing "•  Even  if"  —  begins,  in  the  book,  "And  even  if,"  con- 
necting with  a  different  and  natural  explanation  of  our  Lord's 
method  of  reference  to  the  Pentateuch  and  Isaiah.  The  sixth 
citation,  —  beginning  "When  we  recollect"2 — is  the  sec- 
ond member  of  a  sentence,  whose  first  member  reads  "  But 
the  slight  blemishes  in  the  very  finest  optical  instruments 
do  not  prevent  our  obtaining  from  them  data  which  to  the 
human  mind  of  finest  training  are  exceedingly  exact;  and 

i  pp.  231,  227,  228.  207,  208,  209.  213,  214,  221,  222.         2  Prog.  Orth.,  p.  209. 


14 

when  "  etc.  Half  a  sentence  is  taken,  the  connective  omitted 
without  indication,  and  the  whole  covered  up  by  altering  the 
capital  letter. 

The  fifth  quotation  is  followed  in  the  paragraph  from 
which  it  is  taken  by  an  antithetic  sentence,  beginning:  "But 
this  feature  ...  is  not  its  weakness  but  its  strength,"  and 
by  further  qualification  in  the  next  paragraph  in  the  words : 
"  If  the  question  mean,  'Must  not  such  sin  as  still  dwelt  in 
the  apostles  have  tinged  their  religious  conceptions  and 
teaching  with  error?'  —  we  reply,  This  could  not  have  been 
unless  they  were  more  under  the  influence  of  moral  evil  than 
we  have  any  reason  to  suppose  them  to  have  been."  That  is, 
the  answer  '  Yes '  is  quoted  and  the  answer  'No'  omitted; 
and  this  when  the  negative  refutes  the  charge  of  holding  that 
the  Bible  is  "  fallible  and  untrustworthy  even  in  some  of  its 
religious  teachings." 

The  seventh  quotation,  —  beginning,  "  The  views  of  Christ," 
—  recognizes  that  other  ages  than  the  apostolic  have  been 
blessed  with  men  in  whom  dwelt  the  Spirit  of  wisdom  and 
revelation.  It  is  overlooked  that  before  the  paragraph  closes 
allusion  is  made  to  ancient  prophets,  and  that  it  is  added : 
"  No  teacher  in  the  church  has  ever  arisen  or  can  ever  arise 
so  filled  with  the  Spirit  as  not  to  depend  upon  the  apostles 
for  conceptions  of  God.  We  can  see  that  their  situation  and 
their  exceptionally  exalted  life  make  following  teachers  de- 
pendent upon  them  as  they  were  not  dependent  upon  any 
predecessor  except  Christ ;  that  their  conceptions  of  our  Lord 
are  the  framework  into  which  all  the  subsequent  thoughts  of 
his  church,  about  Him  and  his  work,  must  be  set ;  and  the 
norm  by  which  the  teaching  of  the  church  must  shape  itself." 
And  then  the  writer  goes  on  to  show  that  this  follows  "ne- 
cessarily "  from  their  historical  relation  to  the  Incarnation ; 
that  beyond  this  intimate  personal  acquaintance  with  the 
"  Word  of  life,"  there  was  added  "  the  inner  revelation  " 
and  "pre-eminent  endowment  of  the  Spirit;''''  that  the  hope 
even  must  be  excluded  of  other  teachers  arising  superior  to 
them ;  that  their  conditions  of  spiritual  endowment  were 
"  absolutely    unique ; "    that   the   greatest   thinkers   of  the 


15 

church  have  never  been  able  to  correct  one  of  their  concep- 
tions of  Christ  and  that  in  them  was  fulfilled  Christ's  prom- 
ise to  lead  them  "  into  the  whole  truth."  1 

I  will  not  go  on  with  this  exposure.  These  citations  are 
wholly  insufficient  for  their  purpose.  They  are  vitiated,  first, 
by  their  irrelevancy.  They  fail,  every  one,  as  they  stand,  to 
prove  the  charge,  or  even  to  specify  it.  They  are  wholly 
defaulted,  secondly,  by  being  garbled.  When  taken  in  their 
proper  connections  they  turn  into  a  positive  refutation  of  the 
charge —  a  refutation  which  would  be  repeated  again  and 
again  by  further  citation,  by  passages  for  instance  which 
may  be  found  on  pp.  10,  207,  214,  227,  as  well  as  on  those 
already  adduced. 

The  specifications  show  only  this,  that  sometimes  in  Pro- 
gressive Orthodoxy  the  word  imperfection  is  used,  or  its  equiv- 
alent, whereas  in  the  Creed  the  adjective  "perfect"  is  em- 
ployed. But  it  is  not  thereby  shown  that  the  book  affirms 
to  be  imperfect  what  the  Creed  says  is  perfect.  The  Creed 
affirms  perfection  of  the  Word  of  God  contained  in  the  Scrip- 
tures of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments  as  a  rule  of  faith  and 
practice.  I  take  no  advantage,  though  I  might  on  the  theory 
of  a  merely  literal  interpretation,  of  the  words  "contained 
in."  To  me  the  Bible  is  the  Word  of  God.  But  the  perfec- 
tion ascribed  to  it  in  the  Creed  is  one  of  use  and  function. 
It  is  the  only  perfect  guide  in  a  religious  life,  "  in  faith  and 
practice." 

This  formula  did  not  originate  with  the  framers  of  the 
Seminary  Creed.  The  Westminster  Standards  declare  Holy 
Scripture  "to  be  the  rule  of  faith  and  life,"2  "the  only  rule 
of  faith  and  obedience," 3  "  the  only  rule  to  direct  us  how  we 
may  glorify  and  enjoy  Him."  4  And  among  the  questions  to 
candidates  for  ordination  is  this  one:  "Do  you  believe  the 
Scriptures  of  the  Old  and  New  Testament  to  be  the  Word  of 
God,  the  only  infallible  rule  of  faith  and  practice  ?  "  This  last 
formula  appears  occasionally  in  local  New  England  creeds. 
The  founders  apply  the  word  infallible  to  the   "revelation 

i  Prog.  Orth.,  pp.  210-213.  2  Confession,  Art.  II. 

3  Larger  Catechism,  3.  4  Shorter  Catechism,  2. 


16 

which  God  constantly  makes  of  Himself  in  his  works  of  cre- 
ation, providence  and  redemption."  Their  phrase  respect- 
ing the  Scriptures  is,  "the  only  perfect  rale  of  faith  and 
practice."  It  is  the  Westminster  formula  with  the  change 
of  "infallible"  to  "perfect."  But  the  formula  is  older  than 
the  Westminster  Standards.  It  summed  up  the  universal 
Protestant  contention  against  the  Roman  Catholic  doctrine 
of  Scripture.  The  Council  of  Trent  exalted  Tradition  to  a 
place  of  co-ordinate  authority  with  Scripture.  The  Bible 
was  not  the  only  rule  because  there  was  another.  It  was 
not  the  only  perfect  rule  because  it  was  not  a  complete  rule 
but  partial.  Practically  it  was  not  even  an  infallible  rule 
because  it  needed  to  be  supplemented  by  Tradition,  and  to  be 
authoritatively  interpreted  by  the  Church,  and  with  the 
Bible  alone  as  his  guide  a  man  might  go  astray  from  its  in- 
sufficiency. This  great  controversy  brought  into  use  such 
expressions  as  I  have  cited  from  the  Westminster  Standards, 
and  similar  ones  with  which  we  are  familiar  in  our  local  con- 
fessions. If  you  will  look  into  Chillingworth's  great  work 
on  "  The  Religion  of  Protestants,"  in  which  he  contended 
for  the  famous  maxim  that  the  Bible  alone  is  this  religion, 
you  will  find  passim  the  expressions  "a  perfect  rule  of  faith,"  l 
"the  only  rule"  and  also  abundant  evidence  that  their  mean- 
ing is  what  I  have  just  explained,  viz.,  that  Sacred  Scripture 
is  "  the  only  perfect  rule  of  faith  and  practice,"  because  it  is 
a  complete  rule,  needing  no  supplementing  by  tradition,  a 
plain  rule  requiring  no  infallible  interpreter,  whether  church 
or  pope,  council  or  creed,  a  sure  rule  for  whoever  follows 
its  teachings  will  believe  and  do  what  is  acceptable  to  God 
and  find  eternal  life.  In  a  word  the  formula  as  expounded 
by  this  acknowledged  master  has  a  negative  and  positive 
side.  It  denies  that  other  rules  are  necessary  for  men  either 
as  a  co-ordinate  source  of  religious  knowledge  or  as  an  indis- 
pensable interpreter,  and  it  affirms  that  Scripture  can  make 
the  man  of  God  "  perfect,  thoroughly  furnished  unto  all  good 
works."  2  Scripture  is  thus  "  the  only  perfect  rule  of  faith  and 
practice." 

1  See  particularly  Pt.  I.,  c.  2.  2  2  Tim.  iii.  17. 


17 

In  perfect  consistency  with  this  exposition,  Chillingworth 
opens  the  door  for  all  the  liberty  that  a  sound  historical  criti- 
cism requires  in  the  investigation  of  the  method  in  which  the 
Bible  became  such  a  rule  of  faith.  There  is  not  an  utterance 
cited  by  the  complainants  which  is  not  covered  in  principle 
by  his  masterly  statement,  and  when  the  complainants  attempt 
to  put  such  expressions  as  they  quote  from  Progressive  Ortho- 
doxy and  the  Review  into  antagonism  to  the  Creed  they  are 
not  only  ineffective,  but  they  show  their  ignorance  of  princi- 
ples which  were  formulated  in  the  beginnings  of  Protestantism 
and  long  since  settled  by  one  of  its  universally  recognized 
and  foremost  champions.  Why,  even  so  familiar  a  book  as 
Professor  Stuart's  Old  Testament  Canon  contains  many  a  sen- 
tence just  as  much  and  just  as  little  objectionable  as  those 
picked  out  and  up  by  the  complainants. 

Let  me  present  a  few  of  these  which  have  been  handed  to 
me  by  one  of  my  colleagues  : 

In  regard  to  drawing  the  line  between  what  is  abrogated  in  the 
Old  Testament  and  what  is  now  of  divine  authority  and  obliga- 
tion he  says  :  "  The  ultimate  appeal,  then,  is  to  understanding  and 
reason  ;  not  in  order  to  establish  the  principles  in  question,  for 
Christ  and  his  apostles  have  established  them,  but  to  make  a  dis- 
criminating and  judicious  use  of  these  principles  in  determining 
what  still  remains  in  full  force."      (p.  386.) 

All  that  refers  to  Old  Testament  rites  and  forms  of  worship  is 
abrogated.  "It  remains  now  only  as  the  history  of  what  is  past, 
not  the  rule  of  action  for  the  present  or  the  future."  It  unfolds  "  in 
what  manner  divine  Providence  has  been  educating  the  human  race  ; 
by  what  slow  and  cautious  steps  religion  has  advanced,  and  how 
utterly  impossible  it  is  for  a  religion  that  abounds  in  rites  and 
forms  to  make  much  effectual  progress  anywhere,  either  among 
Jews  or  Gentiles  ;  still  more  impossible  that  it  should  be  a  religion 
to  convert  the  world."     (p.  391.) 

So  too  all  statutes  and  ordinances  that  pertain  merely  to  the 
form  of  the  Jewish  ecclesiastical  and  civil  state,      (pp.  404-405.) 

"  Rarely  will  one  find  an}7  considerable  portion  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment where  there  is  nothing  in  it  of  the  local  and  temporal  that 
must  be  abstracted,  in  order  for  us  to  reduce  it  to  practice." 
(p.  404.) 


18 

The  devotional  psalms,  "the  Psalms  of  complaint,  of  thanks- 
giving, of  imprecation,  and  others,  all  have  something  which  savors 
of  time  and  place  and  circumstances.  These  we  must  omit,  ex- 
cepting that  in  the  exegesis  of  the  Psalm  we  must  treat  them  as 
essential,  but  not  in  the  practical  use  of  it."      (p.  405.) 

"  It  is  so  with  the  Mosaic  laws." 

"  Even  the  ten  commandments  are  not  altogether  an  exception 
to  this."  The  reference  here  is  to  visiting  iniquity  to  third  and 
fourth  generation,  and  to  the  promise  that  thy  days  may  be  long 
in  the  land. 

With  reference  to  the  question  what  is  of  present  practical  value  in 
the  Old  Testament  he  says  :  "  How  few  [of  the  commentaries]  have 
satisfied  the  claims  of  the  reason  and  understanding  of  men  !  " 

"A  commentary  that  would  give  us  simply  what  is  fairly  to  be 
learned  from  every  part  of  the  Old  Testament  in  respect  to  present 
duty,  or  as  to  doctrine  ...  is  one  of  the  things  yet  to  be  ;  for  I 
cannot  think  that  it  now  is.'/     (p.  406.) 

"  What  can  we  say  of  those  teachers  who  find  just  as  full  and 
complete  a  revelation  in  the  Old  Testament  of  every  Christian 
doctrine,  as  in  the  New?  (p.  407.)  Instances  Trinity,  Immor- 
tality and  Future  State. 

"We  must  attribute  no  more  to  the  Old  Testament  than  belongs 
to  it.  The  glory  of  the  gospel  is  not  to  be  taken  away  and  given 
to  a  mere  introductory  dispensation."      (p.  408.) 

"  We  should  regard  them  (Old  Testament  books)  in  the  light  of 
a  preface  or  of  an  introduction  to  the  Gospel." 

Of  current  abuse  of  Old  Testament  texts:  "Books  of  such 
a  peculiar  nature  as  Job  and  Ecclesiastes,  for  example,  are  resorted 
to  with  as  much  confidence  for  proof  texts  as  if  they  were  all  pre- 
ceptive and  not  an  account  of  disputes  and  doubts  about  religious 
matters."  (p.  409.) 

"  The  Psalms  that  breathe  forth  imprecations  are  appealed  to  by 
some,  as  justifying  the  spirit  of  vengeance  under  the  gospel,  instead 
of  being  regarded  as  the  expression  of  a  peculiar  state  of  mind  in 
the  writer,  and  of  his  imperfect  knowledge  with  regard  to  the  full 
spirit  of  forgiveness." 

He  deprecates  the  "violence  done  to  the  understanding  and 
to  sober  common  sense  "  in  exegesis,  and  says  it  "  will  be  certain 
to  avenge  itself  at  last."    (p.  410.) 

"  There  are  not  a  few  persons,  who  seem  to  feel  that  if  the  Old 
Testament  is  a  work  of  inspiration  it  must  stand  on  the  same  level 


19 

with  the  New,  and  be  equally  obligatory.     There  is  something  of 
truth  in  this,  and  not  a  little  of  error."    (p.  413.) 

"  We  have  a  new  and  a  better  Testament  than  the  ancient.  In 
itself  it  is  a  sufficient  guide."    (p.  414.) 

"  Of  one  thing  I  am  full}' persuaded,  which  is,  that  a  proper  use 
of  the  Old  Testament  will  be  made  in  all  cases,  by  no  one  who 
cleaves  to  the  notion,  that  because  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  were 
inspired  they  are  therefore  absolutely  perfect.  Such  perfection 
belongs  not  to  a  prefatory  or  merely  introductory  dispensation. 
It  is  onby  a  relative  perfection  that  the  Old  Testament  can  claim  ; 
and  this  is  comprised  in  the  fact,  that  it  answered  the  end  for 
which  it  was  given.  It  was  given  to  the  world,  or  to  the  Jewish 
nation,  in  its  minority."    (p.  415.) 

"With  the  exception  of  such  sins  as  were  highly  dishonorable 
to  God  and  injurious  to  the  welfare  of  men,  the  rules  of  duty  were 
not  in  all  cases  strictly  drawn." 

"The  Old  Testament  morality,  in  respect  to  some  points  of  rela- 
tive duty,  is  behind  that  of  the  Gospel  "    (p.  416). 

"  The  Gospel  is  ever  and  always  the  ultima  ratio  in  all  matters 
of  religion  and  morals.  It  is  .  .  .  the  highest  tribunal.  What- 
ever there  is  in  the  Old  Testament  which  falls  short  of  this  .  .  . 
is  of  course  not  obligatory  on  us  "    (p.  417.) 

"The  spirit  of  New  Testament  doctrine,  morality,  modes  of 
worship  (so  far  as  modes  are  touched  upon),  is  always  to  be 
applied  to  judging  of  our  obligations  to  the  ancient  Scriptures." 

"There  are  imperfections  in  the  ancient  system;  but  the}'  are 
such  as  the  nature  of  the  case  rendered  necessary.  They  are  in 
accordance  with  the  principle  of  the  slow  and  gradual  amendment 
of  the  race  of  man."    (p.  418.) 

In  arguing  against  Norton  he  emphasizes  the  divine  origin  and 
authority  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  as  admitted  by  Christ  and  his 
apostles  and  Christians  generally  and  then  says  :  "  Mr.  Norton  has 
scanned  Old  Testament  matters  in  the  light  of  New  Testament 
revelation,  and  then  passed  sentence  of  condemnation  upon  the 
imperfect,  because  it  is  not  perfect.  Is  this  equitable  dealing? 
...  Is  it  any  satisfactory  objection  against  this  or  that  specific 
thing  in  the  Old  Testament  that  the  New  has  better  arranged  or 
modified  it?  Is  it  conclusive  against  the  history  or  character  of 
David  and  other  potentates,  that  they  did  things  in  war,  which 
were  common  in  those  days,  but  which  the  Gospel  and  a  better 
state  of  things  now  forbid?  "      (p.  419). 


20 

Particular  2.  The  complainants  quote  from  the  Andover 
Review^  May,  1886,  p.  522,  but  overlook  the  statement  on  p. 
524: 

"  So  long  as  the  doctrines  of  universal  sinfulness,  of  redemption 
and  eternal  life  only  through  Jesus  Christ  the  Saviour,  who  was 
true  God  and  true  man,  and  the  doctrine  of  eternal  condemnation 
to  those  who  do  not  believe  on  Christ,  —  so  long  as  these  doctrines 
are  faithfully  and  generally  preached  we  must  conclude  that  the 
pulpit  which  is  orthodox  in  name  is  in  the  best  sense  orthodox  in 
fact."     See  also  Progressive  Orthodoxy,  pp.  22  sqq. 

Particular  3.  In  the  words  "  are  not  found  "  (quoted  from 
Progressive  Orthodoxy,  p.  47),  there  is  an  obvious  reference 
to  what  is  learned  from  history  and  observation.  The  dis- 
cussion does  not  concern  itself  with  exceptional  cases,  but 
with  the  broad  and  patent  fact  of  the  moral  helplessness  of 
mankind  apart  from  Christ. 

Pages  54-56  are  then  cited  ;  but  the  extract  opens,  if  we 
interpret  aright  the  reference,  with  the  declaration  : 

"But  Christ's  power  to  represent  or  be  substituted  for  man  is 
alwaj-s  to  be  associated  with  man's  power  to  repent.  The  possi- 
bility of  redeeming  man  lies  in  the  fact  that  although  he  is  by  act 
and  inheritance  a  sinner,  yet  under  the  appropriate  influences  he 
is  capable  of  repenting.  The  power  of  repentance  remains,  and 
to  this  power  the  gospel  addresses  itself."  "It  is  to  this  power 
that  Christ,  the  hoi}7  and  the  merciful,  attaches  himself."  "  Now 
the  power  of  repentance,  which,  so  far  as  it  exists,  is  the  power 
of  recuperation,  is  superior  to  the  necessities  of  past  wrong-doing 
and  of  present  habit."   (p.  55.) 

It  is  indeed  stated  that  "  Man  left  to  himself  cannot  have 
a  repentance  which  sets  him  free  from  sin  and  death,"  and 
that  the  race,  without  Christ,  "  would  be  hopelessly  destitute 
of"  the  requisite  "powers  for  repentance  and  holiness." 
But  here  the  writer  is  evidently  contemplating  a  radical  and 
complete  restoration  of  men  to  sonship  and  freedom.  Com- 
pare Paul's  account  of  his  own  experience  in  the  seventh  of 
Romans,  and  these  words  in  Ephesians  ii.  11,  12,  "Where- 


21 

fore  remember,  that  aforetime  ye,  the  Gentiles  in  the  flesh, 
.  .  .  were  at  that  time  separate  from  Christ,  having  no  hope 
and  without  God  in  the  world." 

With  the  language  quoted  from  p.  58,  compare  what  is 
said  on  pp.  59  and  60  :  "  Christ  brings  God  the  Person  to 
man  the  person,  and  in  such  manner  that  God  is  known  as 
the  God  of  holy  love,  the  loving  and  holy  Father.  The 
goodness  of  God  leads  men  to  repentance."  "  Or  reversing 
the  order  and  advancing  to  the  ultimate  fact  that  redemption 
originates  with  God,  we  may  say  that  man  is  the  penitent 
and  obedient  man  because  God  in  Christ  is  the  reconciling 
and  forgiving  God."  The  discussion  deals  with  the  great 
facts  of  human  recovery  from  sin.  The  distinction  between 
natural  ability  and  moral  inability  is  important ;  but  the 
original  Hopkinsians  never  thought  of  putting  the  stress 
upon  it  which  some  later  theologians  have  laid.  Of  one  of 
these  it  was  said,  when  the  remark  was  made  that  he  claimed 
to  represent  the  Hopkinsians,  '  Yes,  with  this  difference : 
they  exalted  divine  efficiency;  he,  human  efficiency.'  The 
writer  of  the  article  in  Progressive  Orthodoxy  seeks  to  ap- 
prehend the  real  saving  powers  in  the  cross  of  Christ.  His 
critics  appear  to  be  fumbling  over  the  distinction  of  natural 
and  moral  ability. 

Following  their  usual  method,  these  complainants  next 
turn  back  a  few  pages  and  pick  up  a  sentence  on  p.  55,  and, 
as  is  not  unusual  with  them,  overlook  other  sentences  on  the 
same  page  which  ought  to  have  entirely  relieved  their  dis- 
tress. We  need  not  quote  over  again  what  has  just  been 
presented.  Finally  the  sentence  is  taken  from  p.  126 ; 
"  Where  in  the  realm  of  natural  law,  can  the  Spirit  find 
material  or  motive  fitted  to  this  most  difficult  of  all  tasks 
—  the  convincement  of  sin  ? "  As  this  is  a  question  we 
might  wait  perhaps  for  the  complainants  to  answer  it.  Any 
contribution  they  may  thus  make  to  Christian  theology  will 
be  cordially  welcomed.  Agassiz  seems  to  have  doubted 
whether  nature  alone  gives  "  any  very  clear  mark  of  the 
character  of  the  Creator."1     But  this  is  not  the  point  to  be 

1  See  Allen's  Our  Liberal  Movement  in  Theology,  p.  157. 


22 

here  discussed.  What  is  there  in  all  that  is  adduced  which 
shows  any  contrariety  of  opinion  to  the  statements  of  the 
Creed?  Man's  natural  powers  of  moral  agency  are  not 
denied,  but  asserted.  It  is  everywhere  assumed  that  men 
are  responsible  for  their  sins.  The  discussion  of  the  book 
relates  to  a  different  question,  namely,  How  is  man  saved  ? 
The  following  extract  from  the  early  pages  of  the  article  on 
The  Atonement,  from  which  nearly  all  the  specifications  are 
taken,  sufficiently  shows  this  : 

"Now  the  message  of  the  gospel  unquestionably  is  that  man 
is  not  bound  under  ethical  in  the  sense  in  which  he  is  bound  under 
physical   necessity ;  that  forces  are   available   for  the  moral  and 
spiritual  life  by  which  man  can  be  delivered  from  the  worst  conse- 
quences of  sin,  and  can  become  a  new  creature.     Transformation 
may  be  rapid   and  complete.     Man   may  be  translated  from  the 
dominion  of  merciless  necessity  into  the  life  of  freedom  and  love. 
The  new  and   higher  force  is  the  revelation  of  God  in  Christ, 
through  which  the  power  of  sin  is  broken  and  the  penalty  of  sin 
remitted.     If  all  this  is  true,  the  gospel  gains  a  profounder  mean- 
ing than  it  has  ever  yielded  before.      The  church  comes  now  to 
man,  well  aware  that  he  cannot  be  separated  from  custom,  habit, 
heredity,  fixedness  of  character,  the  social  organism  of  which  he  is 
part.     It  is  seen  that  redemption  must  be  grounded  in  reason,  and 
must  meet  the  actual  conditions  of  life  and  character  and  society. 
Atonement  must  express  and  reveal  God  as  the  supreme  Reason 
and   perfect   Righteousness,  who    cannot  deny  himself,  and  who 
cannot  disregard  nor  annul  the  moral  law  which  is  established  in 
truth  and  right.     Christian  thought,  having  established  itself  on 
the    intrinsic,  absolute    right    and    on  the    inexorableness  of  law 
so  firmly  that  these  may  be  accepted  as  postulates  in  all  the  in- 
quiry, agreeing  so  far  forth  with  Anselm  on  the  one  hand  and  with 
the  latest  natural  ethics  on  the  other,  is  going  forward  now  to  learn 
if  any  ethical  ends  are  secured  by  the  revelation  of  God  in  Christ, 
and  secured  in  such  a  way  that  God  energizes  in  man  and  society 
for  a  moral  transformation  so  radical  and  complete  that  it  may  be 
called  salvation,  redemption,  eternal  life,  divine  sonship.  .  .  . 

"This  is  the  question  to-day  concerning  atonement,  —  What 
moral  and  spiritual  ends  are  secured  by  the  sacrificial  life  and 
death  of  Christ?     How  does  God's  attitude  towards  man  change, 


23 

and  man's  attitude  towards  God  change,  so  that  there  is  sufficient 
power  for  the  transformation  of  ethical  and  spiritual  life  as  against 
the  tendencies  of  moral  corruption  ?  Evidently  the  result  is  of  a 
kind  that  cannot  be  brought  about  by  sheer  omnipotence,  but  only, 
if  at  all,  by  truth  and  love.  Thought  must  move  in  the  spiritual, 
not  in  the  physical  realm." 

We  add  without  comment  a  few  sentences  which  show  the 
point  of  view  and  the  care  exercised  to  suggest  necessary 
qualifications. 

"  Regeneration  thus  acquires  a  large  and  an  exact  meaning  under 
Christianity.  We  would  not  deny  the  existence  of  regenerate  life 
outside  Christianity.  ...  If  we  say  the  least,  we  can  say  no  less 
than  that  when  we  pass  beyond  the  method  of  the  conscious  re- 
newal of  the  spiritual  life  in  Christ,  we  pass  at  once  into  what  is 
exceptional,  vague,  and  indeterminate,  (pp.  127,  128.) 

' '  The  moral  and  spiritual  recovery  of  mankind  even  as  an  aim 
of  benevolent  purpose,  presupposes  the  provision  of  a  power  in 
motive,  and  a  use  of  this  power  proportionate  to  the  evil  to  be 
confronted,  and  the  good  to  be  accomplished.  '  It  was  the  good 
pleasure  of  the  Father  that  in  Him  should  all  the  fullness  dwell.' 
The  fullness  was  set  over  against  the  need.  Christianity  is  not  a 
matter  of  words,  but  of  deed  and  of  power.  Whatever  we  may 
think  of  antecedent  revelation  the  apostle  teaches  us  the  large  fact 
and  truth  in  the  case  when  he  says,  even  of  the  days  of  Jesus' 
earthly  ministry,  '  The  Spirit  was  not  yet  given,  for  Jesus  was  not 
yet  glorified.'  "      (p.  121.) 

The  Creed  affirms  "that  every  man  is  personally  de- 
praved;" "that  being  morally  incapable  of  recovering  the 
image  of  his  Creator,  which  was  lost  in  Adam,  every  man  is 
justly  exposed  to  eternal  damnation  ;  so  that,  except  a  man 
be  born  again,  he  cannot  see  the  Kingdom  of  God  ; "'  "  that 
...  the  Son  of  God,  and  He  alone,  by  his  suffering  and  death, 
has  made  atonement  for  the  sins  of  all  men;"  "that  the 
righteousness  of  Christ  is  the  only  ground  of  a  sinner's  justi- 
fication ;  that  this  righteousness  is  received  through  faith  ;  " 
"  that  regeneration  and  sanctification  are  effects  of  the  creating 
and  renewing  agency  of  the  Holy  Spirit;"  .  .  .  "that  the 


24 

ordinary  means  by  which  these  benefits  [of  redemption]  are 
communicated  to  us,  are  the  word,  sacraments,  and  prayer;" 
"  that  God's  decrees  perfectly  consist  with  human  liberty  ; " 
"that  man  has  understanding  and  corporeal  strength  to  do  all 
that  God  requires  of  him;  so  that  nothing,  but  the  sinner's 
aversion  to  holiness,  prevents  his  salvation." 

Progressive  Orthodoxy  recognizes  man's  responsibility  for 
his  sins,  affirms  his  moral  ruin,  and  emphasizes  the  right- 
eousness which  is  by  faith  in  Christ  and  the  renewing  work 
of  the  Spirit.  I  am  unable  to  see  wherein  this  book  fails  to 
conserve  the  principles  enunciated  in  the  Creed  on  these 
topics.  They  seem  to  me  to  gain  a  new  depth  of  meaning 
and  a  higher  degree  of  reasonableness  from  the  fact  that  the 
authors  give  to  the  universalit}'  of  the  Atonement  and  to  the 
Incarnation  the  primary  and  central  place  in  theology.  Man's 
moral  agency  becomes  the  activity  of  a  child  of  God,  and  sov- 
ereignty blends  with  fatherhood.  The  reality  and  guilt  of  sin 
grow  darker,  as  the  way  of  escape  grows  brighter.  I  do  not 
the  less  accept  the  principles  of  moral  agency  contained  in  arti- 
cles of  the  Creed  which  I  have  cited  because  they  become 
more  profound  and  far-reaching  by  reason  of  a  doctrine  which 
the  Creed  also  contains,  though  without  indicating  its  power 
of  illumination  ;  I  refer  to  the  article  on  the  universality  of  the 
Atonement.  If  the  Eternal  Son  became  Man  and  died  for  all 
whose  nature  He  made  his  own,  then  moral  agency,  in  a  world 
or  age  in  which  this  is  the  central  and  supreme  revelation  of 
what  is  divine,  necessarily  transcends  the  bounds  of  either  a 
legal  or  imperial  sovereignty.  I  think  that  the  fundamental 
principle  of  Progressive  Orthodoxy  is  in  the  Creed,  and  that  we 
have  a  right  to  interpret  other  associated  doctrines  by  it.  I 
maintain  also  that  these  doctrines,  so  far  as  they  are  not  in- 
consistent with  this  principle,  are  better  held  the  more  they 
are  connected  with  it  and  systematized  by  it. 

Particular  4-  I  have  already,  in  my  Reply,  called  atten- 
tion to  the  way  in  which  the  quotation  marked  as  from  page 
64  is  made  up.  I  have  also  affirmed  my  belief  that  "every 
man  who  sins  is  lost,  and  is  in  danger  of  being  remedilessly 
lost."     I  will  now  simply  add  a  few  quotations,  several  of 


25 

them  lying  between  the  two  page  references,  55  and  64,  which 
are  given  by  the  complainants  in  connection  with  this  par- 
ticular. Their  point,  it  will  be  borne  in  mind  as  I  read,  is, 
that  I  hold,  maintain  and  inculcate  that  men  are  not  sinners 
unless  they  have  heard  of  Christ,  or  at  any  rate  are  not  "in 
danger  of  being  lost."  On  page  44  and  again  on  page  47 
sinfulness  is  predicated  of  man  universally.  On  page  48  it  is 
said  :  "  The  consequences  of  holiness  and  of  sin  cannot  be  set 
aside  by  the  will  of  God.  On  page  54  the  garbled  paragraph 
opens,  in  its  second  sentence,  with  recognizing  "  the  fact "  that 
man  "  is  by  act  and  inheritance  a  sinner,"  and  its  concluding 
sentence  says  that  "on  account  of  Christ  man  can  be  deliv- 
ered from  condemnation''1  On  the  opposite  page  (57)  we 
read :  .  .  "  God  cannot  be  regardless  of  law  nor  indifferent 
to  sin  in  saving  man  from  punishment.''''  On  the  next  page 
it  is  said :  "  The  ideal  relation  of  God  is  love,  but  the  actual 
relation  is  wrath  ;"  on  page  60,  "  He  who  is  not  moved  to 
penitence  and  faith  by  Christ  is  under  a  greater  condemna- 
tion ;  "  on  page  61 :  "  It  is  on  account  of  Christ  that  God  can 
forgive,  on  account  of  Christ  that  men  are  not  left  helpless 
and  condemned  under  the  necessities  of  unchangeable  law." 
On  page  177  the  cause  of  missions  is  recognized  as  resting 
on  "the  postulates  of  universal  sinfulness,  universal  atone- 
ment, and  the  indispensableness  of  faith."  And  in  the  con- 
cluding article  of  the  book  these  postulates  are  re-affirmed, 
and  it  is  added :  We  have  accepted  these  postulates  in  their 
length  and  breadth.  We  have  not  reduced  but  rather  have 
magnified  their  meaning."  And  yet  in  the  face  of  these  ex- 
plicit statements  we  are  charged  with  teaching  that  men  are 
not  sinners  "  save  as  they  have  received  a  knowledge  of  the 
historic  Christ ! " 

Particular  5.  I  do  not  think  that  I  need  give  any  addi- 
tional references  here,  and  I  will  merely  re-affirm  the  reply 
already  submitted. 

Particular  6.  On  page  33  there  is  a  distinct  recognition 
that  the  Apostle  Paul  teaches  the  propitiatory  nature  of 
Christ's  sacrifice ;  and  on  page  48  an  equally  clear  acceptance  of 
the  Anselmic  principle  of  a  "  necessity  .  .  .  in  the  ethical  being 


26 

of  God  .  .  .  which  even  his  will  cannot  contradict  nor  super- 
sede." "...  God  cannot  be  regardless  of  law  nor  indifferent 
to  sin  in  saving  man  from  punishment."  When  it  is  said,  "  It 
must  be  confessed,  however,  that  it  is  not  clear  how  the  suffer- 
ings and  death  of  Christ  can  be  substituted  for  the  punish- 
ment of  sin,"  this  is  not  a  suggestion  of  doubt  as  to  the  fact 
of  Atonement  but  a  statement  of  the  problem,  and  the  key  to 
the  reasoning  which  follows.  The  complainants  have  con- 
fused two  lines  of  approach  to  the  subject  (p.  57),  and 
failed  to  observe  that  the  familiar  one,  on  which  their  own 
thoughts  more  naturally  travel,  is  recognized  but  not  pur- 
sued because  it  is  so  well  understood.  Perhaps  if  they 
would  kindly  endeavor  to  think  out  what  is  suggested  by 
the  word  "  realizing,"  in  one  of  the  closing  sentences  of  the 
article  from  which  they  quote,  —  "In  the  Atonement  God 
promised  redemption  for  the  world  by  realizing  his  holy  love 
in  the  eyes  of  all  the  nations"  —  their  apprehensions  would  be 
relieved.  Will  they  suggest  a  thought  or  expression  that 
more  deeply  penetrates  into  the  nature  of  the  mysterious 
sacrifice  on  Calvary  than  that  by  which  it  is  opened  to  our 
reverent  gaze  as  a  Realization  in  the  fullness  of  time,  at  the 
turning  point  of  human  history,  through  an  incarnate  Re- 
deemer and  for  the  purpose  of  man's  redemption,  of  God's 
righteous  and  holy  love  ? 

And  then  will  the  complainants,  in  addition,  please  to 
point  out  what  is  the  theory  of  the  Atonement  made  binding 
in  the  Creed  as  a  condition  of  a  trust?  Where  is  it  found, 
and  how  is  it  expressed? 

Particular  7.  The  most  charitable  interpretation  of  this 
accusation  is,  that  it  is  a  sheer  blunder,  a  blunder  however 
which  nothing  but  the  oppressive  exigencies  of  this  "  friendly 
suit "  could  have  led  sensible  men  to  commit.  It  appears 
that  it  was  not  the  original  intention  of  the  complainants  to 
file  charges  and  specifications  themselves,  but  when  your 
Reverend  and  Honorable  Body  decided  that,  if  they  thought 
the  matter  presented  by  them  so  serious  as  to  require  investi- 
gation, they  should  reduce  their  accusations  to  definite  form, 
their  embarrassments  became  such  that  a  civilized  commu- 


27 

nity  will  treat  their  mistakes  with  appropriate  lenity.  It  is  one 
thing  to  indulge  for  four  years  in  the  almost  unlimited  license 
of  vague  accusation  permissible  in  the  columns  of  religious 
journalism,  to  call  men  Semi-Unitarians  and  Semi-Univer- 
salists,  and  the  like.  But  it  is  quite  a  different  affair  to  make 
a  specific  charge  and  to  attempt  to  prove  it.  The  editorial 
habit,  however,  could  not  be  easily  resisted.  A  Semi-Unitarian 
—  what  is  he  ?  He  must  be  a  Sabellian.  This  is  particularly 
convenient,  for  the  Professors  at  Andover  promise  to  oppose 
Sabellians,  and  we  want  in  a  friendly  way  to  establish  a  vio- 
lation of  solemn  promises  and  a  breach  of  trust.  We  will 
charge  them  then  with  holding  that  the  Trinity  is  modal. 
But  either  some  special  urgency  of  timeliness  in  pressing  the 
complaint,  or  some  occult  influence  of  superior  power,  or 
some  wholly  mysterious  cause,  required  such  extreme  rapid- 
ity of  execution,  that  these  busy,  active  men,  charged  with 
so  many  grave  responsibilities,  found  no  time  to  look  up  in 
their  Seminary  note-books  or  some  familiar  text-book  what  is 
the  exact  meaning  of  the  words  "  modal  and  monarchian," 
as  applied  to  the  Trinity.  They  were  caught  by  the  word 
"  mode."  just  as  before  they  had  been,  when  dealing  with  the 
Scriptures,  with  the  word  "perfect."  The  Creed  says  the 
Bible  is  a  perfect  rule,  the  Professors  talk  of  imperfections. 
The  Creed  condemns  Sabellians.  Sabellians  —  perhaps  they 
remembered  this  much  of  their  Seminary  lore  —  hold  to  a 
modal  Trinity.  Let  us  look  and  see  if  these  same  Professors 
who  have  so  trifled  with  Sacred  Scripture  are  not  equally 
guilty  in  respect  to  the  Holy  Trinity.  Thus  searching  they 
discovered  and  triumphantly  produced,  when  required  so  to 
do,  in  the  amended  complaint,  two  passages  from  Progressive 
Orthodoxy,  each  of  which  contains  the  word  "  mode  "  in  appli- 
cation to  a  Person  of  the  Trinity.  Here  surely  is  set  forth 
a  modal  Trinity,  and  a  modal  Trinity  is  Sabellian  !  Quid 
obstat?  But  I  respectfully  submit,  Mr.  President  and  Gen- 
tlemen, this  question  to  your  decision,  whether  any  tyro  in 
theology  could  not  have  told  these  men  that  the  distinction 
between  a  modal  or  real  Trinity  is  conveyed  by  the  use  of 
the  phrases  mode  of  manifestation  and  mode  of  bein^-.     He 


28 

who  affirms  the  latter  predicate  of  a  distinction  in  the  God- 
head uses  the  formula  than  which  no  other  is  more  firmly 
established  in  Christian  Theology  as  the  best  word  to  dis- 
criminate the  church  doctrine  from  every  form  of  Monarchi- 
anism.  And  this  precise  formula,  or  its  equivalent,  is  the  one 
twice  employed  by  the  writer  in  Progressive  Orthodoxy  whose 
sentences  are  quoted  to  prove  that  I  hold  to  a  modal  Trinity. 
It  is  as  absurd  as  an  attempt  to  prove  that  President  Lincoln 
was  a  believer  in  absolute  monarchy  because  he  used  the 
word  government  when  he  spoke  at  Gettysburg  of  govern- 
ment by  the  people. 

The  phrases  I  have  used  are,  in  the  first  passage  cited, 
"  the  divine  nature  as  possessed  by  the  Logos,  or  in  that  mode 
which  characterizes  his  existence."  You  have  there  all  the 
most  characteristic  forms  of  speech  by  which  the  Church 
doctrine  of  the  Trinity  has  been  expressed  for  fifteen  centu- 
ries. The  Logos  possesses,  has  as  his  own,  the  divine  nature. 
He  possesses  it,  however,  in  a  peculiar  way  or  mode.  This 
mode  of  possession  characterizes  his  being.  It  is  his  personal 
property  as  the  Larger  Catechism  says,  —  his  characteristic. 
In  the  next  quotation  the  phrase  employed  is,  "  a  particular 
mode  of  the  divine  being,"  not,  you  observe,  mode  of  mani- 
festation, or  relationship  ad  extra. 

I  think  I  need  not  stop  to  discuss  the  question  of  the  mean- 
ing of  the  word  "  Person  "  as  applied  to  the  Holy  Trinity. 
When  the  article  quoted  from,  referring  to  the  three  distinc- 
tions, or  modes  of  being,  in  the  godhead,  affirms  that  "  Neither 
in  itself  is  a  Person,"  it  uses  the  word  Person  as  employed 
when  we  speak  of  the  one  absolute  Person,  God.  I  hold,  and 
the  writer  of  the  article,  judging  by  his  language,  agrees  with 
me  in  holding,  that  each  distinction  is  personal,  but  that  each 
is  a  Person,  (in  the  ordinary  sense  of  personality,  and  as  this 
idea  finds  its  supreme  realization  in  the  Infinite  and  Absolute 
One),  only  in,  with  and  through  the  other  distinctions  and  as 
possessing  the  one  divine  nature.  And  the  orthodoxy  of 
this  position  can  easily  be  established  by  the  most  approved 
writers.  A  doctrine  antagonistic  to  this,  and  at  the  same 
time  admitting  personal  distinctions,  is  sheer  Tritheism,  not 
Trinitarianism. 


29 

I  will  subjoin  a  few  quotations  from  authors  of  acknowl- 
edged standing  and  ability,  which  I  have  taken  almost  at 
random. 

Dr.  Shedd  teaches  that  the  word  Person,  as  applied  to 
the  Trinity,  designates  a  species  of  existence  "anomalous," 
"unique,"  "totally  sui  generis. "  1 

Dr.  Schaff  explains  the  doctrine  established  by  the  great 
Councils  thus  : 

"In  this  one  divine  essence  there  are  three  persons,  or,  to  use  a 
better  term,  hypostases,  that  is  three  different  modes  of  subsistence 
of  the  one  same  undivided  and  indivisible  whole.  .  .  .  Here  the 
orthodox  doctrine  forsook  Sabellianism  or  modalism  which,  it  is 
true,  made  Father,  Son,  and  Spirit  strictly  co-ordinate,  but  only 
as  different  denominations  and  forms  of  manifestation  of  the  one 
God."2 

In  1819  Professor  Moses  Stuart,  in  his  "Letters  to  the 
Rev.  William  E.  Charming,"  gave  this  representation  of  the 
views  of  Trinitarians : 

"The  common  language  of  the  Trinitarian  Symbols  is,  '  That 
there  are  three  Persons  in  the  Godhead.'  In  your  comments  upon 
this,  you  have  all  along  explained  the  word  person,  just  as  though 
it  were  a  given  point,  that  we  use  this  word  here,  in  its  ordinary 
acceptation  as  applied  to  men.  But  can  you  satisfy  yourself  that 
this  is  doing  us  justice?  What  fact  is  plainer  from  Church  History, 
than  that  the  word  person  was  introduced  into  the  creeds  of  ancient 
times,  merely  as  a  term  which  would  express  the  disagreement  of 
Christians  in  general,  with  the  reputed  errors  of  the  Sabellians, 
and  others  of  similar  sentiments,  who  denied  the  existence  of  any 
real  distinction  in  the  Godhead,  and  asserted  that  Father,  Son, 
and  Holy  Ghost  were  merely  attributes  of  God,  or  the  names  of 
different  ways  in  which  he  revealed  himself  to  mankind,  or  of 
different  relations  which  he  bore  to  them,  and  in  which  he  acted? 
The  Nicene  Fathers  meant  to  deny  the  correctness  of  this  state- 
ment, when  they  used  the  word  person.  They  designed  to  imply 
by  it,  that  there  was  some  real,  not  merely  nominal  distinction  in 

1  History  of  Christian  Doctrine,  I.  365. 

2  History  of  the  Christian  Church,  III.  675. 


30 

the  Godhead  ;  and  that  something  more  than  a  diversity  of  relation 
or  action,  in  respect  to  us,  was  intended.  They  used  the  word 
person,  because  the}-  supposed  it  approximated  nearer  to  express- 
ing the  existence  of  a  real  distinction,  than  any  other  which  they 
could  choose.  Most  certainly  neither  they,  nor  any  intelligent 
Trinitarian,  could  use  this  term,  in  such  a  latitude  as  3*011  represent 
us  as  doing,  and  as  you  attach  to  it.  We  profess  to  use  it  merely 
from  the  poverty  of  language  ;  merely  to  designate  our  belief  of  a 
real  distinction  in  the  Godhead  ;  and  not  to  describe  independent, 
conscious  beings,  possessing  separate  and  equal  essences,  and  per- 
fections. Why  should  we  be  obliged  so  often  to  explain  ourselves 
on  this  point?  ...  I  could  heartily  wish,  indeed,  that  the  word 
person  never  had  come  into  the  Symbols  of  the  Churches,  because 
it  has  been  the  occasion  of  so  much  unnecessary  dispute  and 
difficulty."1 

John  Calvin,  in  his  Institutes,  remarks  as  follows  :  — 

"  The  Latins  having  used  the  word  Persona  to  express  the  same 
thing  as  the  Greek  imoaraaig,  it  betrays  excessive  fastidiousness 
and  even  perverseness  to  quarrel  with  the  term.  The  most  literal 
translation  would  be  subsistence.  Many  have  used  substance  in 
the  same  sense.  Nor,  indeed,  was  the  use  of  the  term  Person 
confined  to  the  Latin  Church.  For  the  Greek  Church,  in  like 
manner,  perhaps,  for  the  purpose  of  testifying  their  consent,  have 
taught  that  there  are  three  npiyomna  (aspects)  in  God.  All  these, 
however,  whether  Greeks  or  Latins,  though  differing  as  to  the 
words  perfectly  agreed  in  substance."  2 

"  Where  names  have  not  been  invented  rashly,  we  must  beware 
lest  we  become  chargeable  with  arrogance  and  rashness  in  rejecting 
them.  I  wish,  indeed,  that  such  names  were  buried,  provided  all 
would  concur  in  the  belief  that  the  Father,  Son,  and  Spirit,  are 
one  God,  and  }Tet  that  the  Son  is  not  the  Father,  nor  the  Spirit 
the  Sou,  but  that  each  has  his  peculiar  subsistence  \_proprietate~] . 
I  am  not  so  minutely  precise  as  to  fight  furiously  for  mere  words."  3 

•■  But,  if  we  hold,  what  has  been  already  demonstrated  from 
Scripture,  that  the  essence  of  the  one  God,  pertaining  to  the 
Father,  Son  and  Spirit,  is  simple  and  indivisible,  and  again,  that 
the  Father  differs  in  some  special  propert}'  from  the  Son,  and  the 

1  Op.  cit  ,  pp.  21-23,  2d  ed.,  1819. 

2  Op.  cit.  I.  p.  148.    Calv.  Traus.  Soc.  Ed.  1815.  *  lb.  pp.  150,  151. 


31 

Son  from  the  Spirit,  the  door  will  be  shut  against  Arins  and  Sabel- 
lius,  as  well  as  the  other  ancient  authors  of  error."  1 

Particular  8.  Perhaps  I  need  do  no  more  than  repeat  my 
previous  reply  : 

"  The  accusation  is  that  I  hold  the  work  of  the  Holy  Spirit  to  be 
'  chiefly  confined  to  the  sphere  of  historic  Christianity  ; '  or,  as 
more  definitely  specified  by  the  citation,  with  its  context,  that  the 
'  efficacious,'  regenerating,  saving  work  of  the  Spirit  is  thus  '  chief- 
ly confined.'  The  opposite  proposition  would  be  that  this  work  is 
'chiefly  confined  to'  paganism,  or  Judaism,  or  both.  There  can 
be  no  doubt  which  of  these  propositions  is  more  accordant  with  the 
Creed,  with  orthodox}',  or  with  '  consistent '  Calvinism  as  explained 
in  the  Creed.  Substituting  the  words  '  conducted  within  '  for 
'  confined  to,'  and  not  doubting  a  universal  work  of  the  Spirit,  I 
should  admit  the  accusation." 

I  will  only  add  that  the  subject  is  discussed  in  Progressive 
Orthodoxy  in  the  light  of  history,  observation  and  missionary 
experience  —  that  is,  as  a  question  of  fact.  So  far  as  we  have 
evidence,  or  judged  by  its  fruits,  Christianity  alone  offers  the 
requisite  material  in  motive  for  the  transformation  of  man- 
kind into  a  spiritual  temple  and  kingdom  of  God. 

I  think  that  this  is  implied  in  Pentecost,  that  it  is  the 
teaching  of  John  vii.  39,  and  of  much  Scriptural  authority 
besides.  "  Only  when  Jesus  was  glorified,"  is  Dr.  Milligan's 
comment  on  the  passage  in  John's  Gospel  (Dr.  S chaff's  Popu- 
lar Commentary*),  .  .  "  would  men  receive  that  spiritual 
power  which  is  the  condition  of  all  spiritual  life." 

Particular  9.  I  reaffirm  but  do  not  find  occasion  to  ex- 
pand my  previous  answer,  save  to  add  a  few  references  to 
passages  on  pp.  56,  57,  60,  and  61,  where  the  sinner's  condem- 
nation under  law  is  abundantly  recognized. 

Particular  10.  I  repeat  my  former  reply,  and  refer  also  to 
my  acceptance  of  the  statement  in  the  Creed  that  the  Scrip- 
tures are  the  "  only  perfect  rule  of  faith  and  practice."  A 
reasonable  being  must  be  guided  by  reason,  but  it  is  the  dic- 
tate of  reason  to  submit  to  the  word  and  authority  of  God. 

i  lb.  p.  173. 


32 

I  believe,  however,  that  reason  is  at  the  bottom  of  all  things, 
the  reason  of  the  universal  Creator  and  Redeemer.  There- 
fore human  reason  may  explore  and  question  and  hope  to 
find  more  and  more  fully  the  truth.  If  the  charge  intends  — 
which  I  do  not  allege  —  to  cast  a  slur  upon  reason  in  matters 
of  faith,  I  beg  leave  to  refer  to  the  nobler  maxims  of  the  leader 
of  the  party  which  had  most  to  do  with  shaping  the  Semi- 
nary Creed.  I  quote  from  Dr.  Park's  Memoir  of  Samuel  Hop- 
kins. 

"  Our  author's  strength  of  character  induced  him  to  give  an 
unusual  prominence  to  the  more  difficult  parts  of  theology,  and 
thus  it  shaped  his  entire  system.  Whether  his  speculations  be 
true  or  false,  he  has  done  a  great  work  in  promoting  manly  discus- 
sion, in  convincing  his  readers  that  piet3r  is  something  more  than 
a  blind  sentimeutalism,  and  that  theology  is  something  better  than 
a  superstitious  faith.  He  has  encouraged  men  to  examine  intricate 
theories,  and  the  examination  has  saved  them  from  scepticism. 
Hundreds  have  been  repulsed  into  infidelit}',  by  the  fear  of  good 
men  to  encounter  philosophical  objections.  Hopkins  was  too 
strong  for  such  fears.  He  had  that  sterling  common  sense  which 
loves  to  grapple  with  important  truths,  cost  what  they  may  of  toil. 
The  great  problem  of  the  existence  of  sin  early  awakened  his  curi- 
osity, and  moved  the  depths  of  his  heart.  A  weaker  man  would 
have  shrunk  from  the  investigation  of  such  a  theme.  But  he  was 
ready  to  defend  all  parts  of  what  he  loved  to  call  '  a  consistent 
Calvinism.'  His  readiness  to  encounter  the  hardest  subjects  and 
the  sturdiest  opponents,  was  foretokened  by  one  of  his  early  corpo- 
real feats.  It  is  reported  that  an  insane  man,  stalwart  and  furious, 
was  once  escaping  from  his  keepers  with  fearful  speed ;  but  the 
young  divine  intercepted  him,  and  held  him  fast  until  the  maniac 
gave  up,  and  cried,  '  Hopkins,  you  are  nrv  master.' 

"Throughout  the  unpublished  and  published  writings  of  Hopkins, 
there  breathes  a  masculine  spirit,  which  refuses  to  be  satisfied  by 
assertion  instead  of  argument,  and  insists  on  the  legitimate  use  of 
the  faculties  which  God  has  given  us.  At  the  age  of  sixty-five,  he 
writes  to  Dr.  Hart :  '  I  ask  what  faith  I  shall  have  in  the  power 
of  God,  or  what  belief  of  any  revealed  truth,  if  I  do  not  so  far 
trust  to  my  own  understanding,  as  to  think  and  be  confident  that  I 
do  understand  that  God  has  revealed  certain  truths,  and  what  they 


33 

are.'  In  his  thirty-fifth  year,  Hopkins  seized  at  what  he  deemed  a 
tacit  concession  of  Dr.  May  hew,  that  Arminianistn  could  not  be 
sustained  by  reason.  He  writes  to  Bellamy  :  '  I  think  he  [May- 
hew]  says  that  which  may  be  fairly  construed  as  a  crying  down 
of  reason,  under  the  name  of  metaphysical,  or  some  epithet  tanta- 
mount." Hopkins  was  too  vigorous  to  leave  such  a  concession 
unnoticed.  He  turns  the  tables  on  his  Arminian  opposers,  and 
the}'  censure  him  for  his  argumentative  style,  —  the  very  thing  for 
which  the}'  have  been  censured,  again  and  again,  by  their  antago- 
nists. Our  stout  champion  says,  that  '  Pelagians  and  Arminians 
have  been,  in  too  man}'  instances,  treated  so  by  their  opponents, 
the  professed  Calvinists.  The  former  have  gloried  in  their  reason- 
ing against  the  latter,  as  unanswerable  demonstration.  The  latter, 
instead  of  detecting  the  weakness,  fallacy,  and  absurdity  of  the 
reasoning  of  the  former,  and  maintaining  their  cause  on  this 
ground,  as  well  they  might,  have  endeavored  to  defend  themselves 
from  this  weapon  by  bringing  it  into  disgrace,  and  rejecting  it 
under  the  name  of  carnal,  unsanctified  reason,  etc.  This  has  been 
so  far  from  humbling  or  giving  them  the  least  conviction  of  their 
errors,  that  it  has  had  a  contrary  effect  to  a  very  great  and  sensible 
degree.  And  no  wonder ;  for  this  was  the  direct  tendency  of  it, 
as  it  is  an  implicit  confession  that  they  felt  themselves  worsted  at 
reasoning.'  "  x 

Particular  11.  It  is  evident  from  a  few  extracts  from  Pro- 
gressive Orthodoxy  to  which  I  will  immediately  call  attention 
that  our  views  upon  the  subject  here  introduced  have  not 
been  presented  in  the  unguarded  way  which  is  here  assumed 
to  be  true.  What  I  am  to  read  is  a  caveat  to  which  marked 
prominence  is  given  in  the  book  against  such  a  misrepresen- 
tation.    In  the  "Introduction  "  pains  was  taken  to  say  : 

"  Problems  are  above  the  horizon  which  are  not  yet  clearly 
within  the  field  of  vision.  Even  their  provisional  and  relative 
solution  is  at  present  impracticable.  Too  early  an  attempt  to 
define  and  systematize  is  likely  to  cramp  and  repress  inquiry,  and 
to  promote  a  dogmatic  self-satisfaction  which  is  a  deadly  foe  to 
progress.  The  aim,  accordingly,  of  the  writers  of  these  papers  has 
been  to  keep  clearly  within  the  range  of  w^at  is  immediately 
necessary  and  practical.  For  the  most  part,  a  single  line  of 
1  The  works  of  Samuel  Hopkins,  I.  pp.  ±A3-178. 


34 

inquiry  hns  been  followed,  under  the  guidance  of  a  central  and 
vital  principle  of  Christianity,  namely,  the  reality  of  Christ's  per- 
sonal relation  to  the  human  race  as  a  whole  and  to  every  member 
of  it, — the  principle  of  the  universality  of  Christianity. 

"  This  principle  has  been  rapidly  gaining  of  late  in  its  power 
over  men's  thoughts  and  lives.  It  is  involved  in  the  church  doc- 
trine of  the  constitution  of  Christ's  person.  It  is  a  necessary 
implication  of  our  fathers'  faith  in  the  extent  and  intent  of  the 
Atonement.  It  is  an  indisputable  teaching  of  sacred  Scripture. 
It  lies  at  the  heart  of  all  that  is  most  heroic  and  self-sacrificing  in 
the  Christian  life  of  our  centuiy.  We  have  sought  to  apply  this 
principle  to  the  solution  of  questions  which  are  now  more  than 
ever  before  engaging  the  attention  of  serious  and  devout  minds. 
We  have  endeavored  to  follow  its  guidance  faithfully  and  loyally, 
and  whithersoever  it  might  lead.  We  have  trusted  it  wholly  and 
practically.  By  the  publication  of  this  volume  we  submit  our 
work  to  the  judgment  of  a  wider  public.  If  we  have  anywhere 
overestimated  or  underestimated  the  validity  and  value  of  our 
guiding  principle,  we  hope  that  this  will  be  pointed  out.  Or  if  we 
have  lost  sight  of  any  qualifying  or  limiting  truth,  we  desire  that 
this  may  be  shown.  On  the  other  hand,  if  we  have  been  true  to  a 
great  and  cardinal  doctrine  of  our  holy  religion,  and  have  devel- 
oped its  necessary  implications  and  consequences,  we  ask  that 
any  further  discussion  of  these  conclusions  should  recognize  their 
connection  with  the  principle  from  which  they  are  derived,  and  their 
legitimacy,  unless  this  principle  is  itself  to  be  abandoned."  1 

On  page  39  "a  better  understanding  of  the  revealed  central 
position  of  Christ  in  the  universe,  and  of  the  absoluteness 
of  Christianity,"  is  claimed  as  a  characteristic  of  the  "  New 
Theology."  The  presentation  of  the  theory  of  future  pro- 
bation is  prefaced  by  these  remarks  : 

"  At  this  point  the  discussion  might  terminate.  The  principle 
of  judgment  in  accordance  with  which  the  destinies  of  men  are 
determined  we  believe  to  be  that  which  has  now  been  defined.  .  .  . 
We  could  stop  here,  but  for  a  related  question  which  has  long  per- 
plexed and  disturbed  believers.  It  is  a  question  as  to  the  judg- 
ment and  the  destiny  of  those  to  whom  the  gospel  is  not  made 

i  Prog.  Ortk.,  pp.  3,  4.cf.  pp.  13,  14,  16. 


35 

Known  while  they  are  in  the  body.  We  must  consider  the  discus- 
sion, then,  in  order  to  consider,  as  it  may  seem  to  deserve,  this 
difficult  question.  It  is,  in  our  opinion,  to  be  looked  on  as  an  ap- 
pended inquiry,  rather  than  as  an  essential  question  for  theology. 
Still  it  is  not  wanting  either  in  practical  or  speculative  importance, 
and,  at  any  rate,  is  at  present  much  in  dispute. 

"  B.    A  Related  Question. 

"  What  is  the  fate  of  those  millions  to  whom  Christ  is  not  made 
known  in  this  life,  and  of  those  generations  who  lived  before  the 
advent  of  Christ? 

"  This  may,  perhaps,  be  only  a  temporary  question.  The  time 
may  come,  we  think  will  come,  when  all  will  hear  the  messages  of 
the  gospel  during  the  earthly  lifetime,  and  will  know  the  gospel  so 
thoroughly  that  knowledge  and  corresponding  opportunity  will  be 
decisive.  Then  there  will  be  less  occasion  for  perplexity,  as  there 
will  be  no  apparent  exclusion  from  those  opportunities  which  at 
present  are  given  to  only  part  of  the  great  human  family. 

"  The  question  we  have  raised  is  not  new.  Nor  are  any  of  the 
proposed  answers  new,  although  some  of  the  reasoning  is  the  out- 
come of  a  more  profound  thought  of  the  gospel  than  has  been 
gained  in  preceding  periods.  An  instructive  lesson  for  impress- 
ing the  difficulty  of  our  inquiry  is  a  history  of  the  various  opinions 
which  have  been  held  during  the  Christian  centuries  by  honored 
leaders  and  revered  saints ;  such  an  historical  sketch,  for  example, 
as  Dean  Plumptre  gives  in  his  recent  book  entitled,  '  The  Spirits 
in  Prison.'  No  answer  which  has  yet  been  given  is  entirely  free 
from  objections.  Every  one,  unless  he  declines  to  accept  any  solu- 
tion, has  an  alternative  before  him,  and  must  rest  in  that  conclu- 
sion which  seems  to  him  most  nearly  in  accordance  with  the  laro-e 
meaning  of  the  gospel,  and  which  is  exposed  to  the  fewest  serious 
objections.  Certainly,  any  one  should  be  slow  to  condemn  those 
whose  opinions  on  this  vexed  subject  do  not  agree  with  his  own 
hypothesis.  There  is  no  explicit  revelation  as  to  the  destiny  of 
those  who  on  earth  have  had  no  knowledge  of  Christ.  Therefore 
any  inference  that  is  drawn  from  the  doctrines  of  the  gospel,  and 
from  the  interpretation  of  incidental  allusions  of  Scripture,  must 
be  held  with  confession  of  some  remaining  ignorance  on  the  part 
of  the  reasoner.  The  theory  which  we  shall  advance  presently  is 
offered  under  these  conditions." 


36 

It  is  evident  from  these  quotations  that  in  our  reply  we 
might  have  met  this  entire  charge  by  a  simple  and  sheer 
denial.  It  is  patent,  by  the  book,  that  we  do  not,  in  the 
unqualified  manner  of  the  charge,  make  any  opinion  we  en- 
tertain respecting  future  probation  a  central  doctrine.  In 
the  strictest  sense  we  do  not  treat  it  as  a  doctrine  at  all, 
but  only  as  an  inference  from  a  doctrine  or  fundamental 
principle. 

I  do  not  wish,  however,  to  avail  myself  of  any  refinements 
at  this  point.  I  claim  full  liberty  under  the  Creed  to  hold  in 
this  matter  whatever  a  true  interpretation  of  Scripture,  and 
of  the  "revelation  which  God  constantly  makes  of  Himself 
in  his  works  of  creation,  providence  and  redemption,"  may 
make  probable,  and  with  a  degree  of  faith  as  exactly  propor- 
tionate to  available  evidence  as  I  can  measure ;  nay,  I  do  not 
think  I  shall  commit  any  sin  against  reason  and  Scripture 
and  the  God  who  speaks  in  Scripture  and  reason,  nor  violate 
any  obligation  under  the  Creed,  if  I  allow  myself  to  follow 
with  a  perfect  trust  wherever  with  the  heart  as  well  as  with 
the  head  I  can  discover  any  traces  of  his  holy  and  reconciling 
love. 

I  have  not  therefore  in  my  reply  availed  myself  of  the 
opportunity  given  by  the  extravagance  of  the  accusation  to 
make  a  square  denial  of  it.  I  have  said  :  "  In  this  unqualified 
form  I  do  not  admit  that  I  hold,  maintain  and  inculcate  '  that 
there  is  and  will  be  probation  after  death  for  all  men  who  do 
not  decisively  reject  Christ  during  the  earthly  life;'  and  that 
this  should  be  emphasized,  made  influential,  and  even  central 
in  systematic  theology."  I  have  added  :  "  God  as  revealed  in 
Christ  is  to  me  central  in  theology.  Whatever  encourages 
hope  that  all  men  will  have  opportunity  to  be  influenced  by 
the  motive  of  an  offered  Saviour  is  chiefly  valuable  in  theol- 
ogy* as  a  reflection  of  the  character  of  God." 

A  theologian's  duty,  as  well  as  a  believer's,  and  indeed 
every  man's,  is  primarily  to  God.  What  He  is  in  his  char- 
acter and  in  his  will  concerning  us,  is  the  great,  and  all- 
absorbing  question.  This  is  emphatically  a  fundamental 
principle  of  "  consistent  Calvinism."    The  question  about  the 


37 

heathen  has  a  deep  interest  to  us  because  they  are  men  ; 
a  deeper  interest  because  they  are  men  for  whom  Christ  died, 
each  and  every  one  ;  the  deepest  interest  because  they  are 
children  of  the  same  God  on  whom  all  our  personal  hopes 
depend  and  in  whom  all  our  lives  are  lived.  A  question  of 
this  character  is  a  fundamental  question.  Therefore  when  any 
inquiry  arises  which  in  the  smallest  degree  whatsoever  in- 
volves His  character,  I  will  not  protect  myself  by  any  man's 
want  of  skill  in  attacking  me.  So  far  as  the  question  of  the 
heathen  comes  into  the  sphere  of  the  ethical  character  ot 
God  and  just  so  far  as  it  is  within  even  the  faintest  circles  of 
light  which  we  may  discern  if  we  will,  it  is  a  part  of  the  one 
and  the  only  central  and  fundamental  question  for  every 
man  :  What  is  God  ?  And  I  beg  leave  to  emphasize  that 
this  is  the  real  central  question  we  have  discussed  in  Pro- 
gressive Orthodoxy,  and  not  the  mere  issue  about  Probation. 

That  there  may  be  no  ambiguity  as  to  my  position  because, 
on  a  question  so  vital,  my  assailants  have  blundered,  I  deny 
even  the  last  part  of  this  accusation  with  this  measure  of 
qualification. 

The  first  part  I  deny,  in  my  answer,  by  calling  attention  to 
the  fact  that  what  I  hold  is  an  inference  from  what  appears 
to  be  evident,  and  is  a  reasonable  inference,  and  that  it  seems 
to  be  implied  in  the  universality  of  Christ's  Person,  Atonement 
and  Judgment.  This  is  a  suggestion  by  example  of  the 
grounds  of  hope,  and  the  method  of  it.  I  then  deny  that 
such  an  inference  is  inconsistent  with  any  thing  in  the  Creed. 

Upon  this  basis  there  arise  two  questions.  First,  have  the 
•complainants  shown  that  we  "  hold,  maintain  and  inculcate  " 
any  thing  more  or  other  than  what  is  here  conceded  ?  No 
-evidence  to  this  effect  has  been  adduced,  nor  is  there  any. 

Second.  Is  the  drawing  and  accepting  this  inference  such 
a  departure  from  the  Creed  as  brings  me  into  disharmony 
with  it,  or  into  antagonism  to  it  in  my  official  service? 

It  devolves  upon  the  complainants  to  prove  such  dishar- 
mony or  antagonism.  They  must  show,  if  they  are  to  make 
out  their  case,  that  the  inference  in  question  is  necessarily 
hostile  to  the  Creed,  that  I  cannot  entertain  it  without  being 


38 

hostile  to  the  same,  that  I  cannot  receive  it  without  violat- 
ing my  solemn  promise  "  to  maintain  and  inculcate  the  Chris- 
tian faith  as  expressed  in  the  Creed,  .  .  .  so  far  as  appertains 
to  my  office,  according  to  the  best  light  God  shall  give  me, 
and  in  opposition  to  "  various  errors. 

In  reviewing  the  effort  to  establish  such  antagonism  I  have 
a  right  to  demand  from  the  complainants  entire  definiteness 
of  statement,  and  conclusiveness  of  argument.  They  must 
show  that  I  actually  take  positions  in  what  they  prove,  or  in 
what  I  admit,  that  I  hold,  which  contravene  my  official  obli- 
gations under  the  Creed  and  Statutes. 

Under  the  Creed.  The  question  is  not  one  of  contrariety  to 
opinions  commonly  held  when  the  Seminary  was  founded,  nor 
even  to  opinions  held  by  the  Founders,  but  simply  of  antagon- 
ism to  what  they  have  prescribed  in  their  Statutes.  Professor 
Park  has  said  that  the  Professors  at  Andover  "  are  now  under 
the  safeguard  of  that  Creed.  They  cannot  be  required  to  be- 
lieve more  than  is  involved  or  implied  in  it."  This  is  a  car- 
dinal principle.  Not  the  opinions  of  the  Founders,  but  what 
they  have  prescribed  or  implied  in  their  Statutes,  is  the  stand- 
ard by  which  the  charge  of  "  heterodoxy  "  is  to  be  tested." 
As  I  have  previously  stated  I  do  not  hereby  waive  or  dis- 
credit any  claim  that  may  arise  from  a  larger  interpretation 
of  the  word  heterodoxy,  I  simply  disregard  it  for  the  present 
discussion,  meeting  my  opponents  on  their  chosen  ground. 

Coming  now  to  the  accusation  I  notice  (1)  that  the  Creed 
contains  no  explicit  declaration  upon  the  question  at  issue. 

It  says  nothing  whatever  about  the  condition  of  men  who 
die  without  opportunity  to  hear  the  gospel,  or  to  accept  or 
reject  an  offered  Saviour,  in  the  intermediate  state  between 
death  and  judgment.  All  that  it  affirms  about  men  who  do 
not  die  in  faith  is  contained  in  these  words:  "but  that  the 
wicked  will  awake  to  shame  and  everlasting  contempt  and 
with  devils  be  plunged  into  the  lake  that  burneth  with  fire 
and  brimstone  forever  and  ever." 

This  is  Biblical  phraseology.  It  is  the  only  instance  in  the 
entire  Creed  (with  one  possible  exception  which  would  con- 
firm my  argument)  in  which  such  a  resort  is  made.     Every- 


39 

where  else  the  framers  use  their  own  terms,  or  the  traditional 
language  of  the  Catechism.  An  awe  seems  to  come  over 
them  when  they  come  to  the  awful  destiny  of  incorrigible 
sinners.  They  will  prescribe  nothing  themselves.  Whatever 
their  own  interpretations  of  Scripture  they  will  not  introduce 
them  into  a  Creed  which  they  intend  shall  not  be  altered, 
and  which  they  hope  will  endure  till  the  end  shall  come.  It 
probably  never  occurred  to  them  that  men  would  arise  who 
would  reject  their  doctrines  as  antiquated,  and  then  claim  that 
it  is  a  breach  of  trust  to  follow  the  Scripture  which  they  in- 
serted in  the  Creed  rather  than  to  follow  their  opinions  which 
they  did  not  insert.  I  repeat :  they  simply  on  a  subject  so 
grave  and  terrible,  use  the  phraseology  of  the  Bible.  Unin- 
terpreted by  them,  left  in  its  original  form,  it  has  the  mean- 
ing of  Scripture,  as  they  quote  it,  and  this  meaning  only. 

I  claim  that  this  disposes  conclusively,  finally,  of  the  whole 
question.  I  have  no  right,  you  have  no  right,  to  add  to  this 
Creed ;  to  put  an  interpretation  on  this  Scriptural  language 
other  than  the  language  which  is  cited  bears,  to  give  it  a 
meaning  which  they  did  not  prescribe,  and  when  they  chose 
to  leave  it  uninterpreted. 

I  know  of  but  one  qualification.  It  may  be  that  a  correct 
interpretation  of  the  Hebrew  original,  whose  translation  in 
King  James's  version  the  Founders  use,  would  make  the 
passage  less  relevant  than  they  supposed.  It  would  not  of 
course  be  fair  to  the  Founders  for  any  one  to  take  an  advan- 
tage of  this  —  if  such  a  supposition  may  be  pardoned.  For  it 
obviously  was  the  intention  of  the  Founders  to  introduce 
into  their  Creed  an  article  upon  the  final  state  of  the  wicked. 
They  used  for  this  purpose  a  passage  about  whose  meaning 
they  supposed  there  was  no  reasonable  doubt.  It  is  a  text 
which  in  its  phraseology  as  they  accepted  it  plainly  refers  to 
the  final  resurrection.  It  was  commonly  so  understood  in 
their  time,  and  by  the  best  commentators  with  whom  they 
were  familiar.  They  would  not  have  quoted  it,  if  they  had 
supposed  it  possible  that  it  could  refer  to  a  revival  of  the 
Jewish  nation  under  Antiochus  Epiphanes,  or  any  thing  in 
the  history  of  the  Hebrews. 


40 

Beyond  this  they  cannot  go.  The}'-  quoted  what  they  un- 
derstood to  be  plainly  an  eschatological  passage,  and  left  it 
wholly  uninterpreted.  No  man  has  a  right  to  go  beyond  this 
clear  intent.  All  the  language  they  used,  as  they  use  it, 
refers  to  the  final  resurrection  and  judgment. 

This  appears  from  an  examination  of  it.  "  The  wicked  "  — 
who  are  they?  The  " incorrigibly  wicked  at  death,"  it  has 
been  argued.  This  is  an  addition.  Besides,  who  are  the 
incorrigibly  wicked  "at  death"?  The  article  speaks  of 
the  resurrection  and  final  judgment.  "The  wicked"  is 
the  Founders'  phrase,  and  they  add  no  comment.  It  is  a 
Biblical  phrase.  In  the  New  Testament  (King  James's  ver- 
sion), it  is  used  but  once  with  an  eschatological  reference. 
"  So  shall  it  be  at  the  end  of  the  world :  the  angels  shall 
come  forth  and  sever  the  wicked  from  among  the  just." 
"At  the  end  of  the  world."  This  is  the  point  of  view  of  the 
article  in  the  Creed,  and  to  select  any  other  is  to  read  into 
the  article  what  this  phrase  does  not  require,  and  what  the 
context  excludes.  The  article  continues  :  "  the  wicked  will 
awake  to  shame  and  everlasting  contempt,"  quoting  the  lan- 
guage of  the  prophet  Daniel,  which  was  understood  to  refer 
to  the  general  resurrection  at  the  end  of  the  world,  "  and 
with  devils  be  plunged  into  the  lake  that  burnetii  with 
fire  and  brimstone  for  ever  and  ever,"  employing  still  Bibli- 
cal language  which  describes  what  follows  upon  the  final 
judgment.1  There  is  in  all  this  no  allusion  and  no  hint  of 
an  allusion  to  what  ensues  at  death  in  the  case  of  men  who 
have  not  heard  the  Gospel,  nor  had  opportunity  to  learn  of  a 
Saviour.  Not  a  syllable.  All  reference  to  such  a  subject 
here  is  something  added  to  the  Creed,  and  is  wholly  without 
warrant  or  authority. 

The  case  cannot  be  made  stronger,  but  it  is  noteworthy 
that,  as  we  should  expect,  such  a  necessary  construction  of 
the  language  harmonizes  with  the  context. 

The  state  of  believers  is  considered  at  three  stages,  —  in 
this  life,  at  death,  and  at  the  resurrection.  The  state  of  un- 
believers  is  considered  at  but  one,  —  the  final  outcome  of 

Rev.  xxi.  8  ;  and  perhaps  Matt.  xxv.  4. 


41 

their  wickedness.  The  Shorter  Catechism  which  is  here 
followed  so  closely  says  nothing  about  the  destiny  of  the 
wicked.  The  framers  of  the  Creed  were  led  by  it  through 
the  three  stages  in  the  history  of  believers.  They  added 
something  as  to  the  final  state  of  unbelievers.  They  had 
been  brought  to  the  final  state  of  the  righteous.  They  put 
in  sharp  contrast  with  this,  and  in  Biblical  and  in  part  figu- 
rative language,  the  final  state  of  the  wicked.  No  one  can 
rightfully  add  to  their  work  as  a  condition  of  their  trust. 

2.  The  Creed  contains  no  implicit  declaration  adverse  to  the 
tenet  that  those  who  have  had  no  opportunity  to  learn  of  a 
Saviour  in  this  life  may  be  granted  such  opportunity  in  the 
other  life. 

It  is  contended  that  such  an  adverse  conclusion  may  be 
deduced  from  the  statement  that  "  they  who  are  effectually 
called  do  in  this  life  partake  of  justification,  adoption,  and 
sanctification,  and  the  several  benefits  which  do  either 
accompany  or  flow  from  them."  This  language,  it  is  argued, 
implies  that  all  who  are  saved  are  saved  in  this  life.  Conse- 
quently none  can  be  supposed  to  have  an  opportunity  of 
salvation  beyond  this  life. 

This  is  an  attempt  to  find  in  the  Creed  a  doctrine  which 
is  not  taught  in  the  place  where  it  properly  belongs.  In  an 
instrument  so  carefully  drawn  as  the  Creed,  so  well  arranged, 
so  studiously  elaborated,  such  an  endeavor  is  open  to  suspi- 
cion. The  presumptions  are  against  an  incidental  deliver- 
ance upon  a  question  which,  if  the  intention  had  been  to 
pronounce  upon  it  at  all,  would  have  certainly  received  the 
same  pains-taking  treatment  which  is  everywhere  else 
evinced.  The  character  of  the  men  who  made  the  Creed 
and  the  character  of  the  document  are  strongly  adverse  to 
the  supposition  that  there  was  any  purpose  in  this  article  to 
settle  an  important  doctrine  of  eschatology.  Such  indirec- 
tion is  not  the  method  of  the  Creed,  nor  is  it  the  method  of 
the  men  who  composed  it,  nor  of  the  theology  of  their  time. 
In  general,  an  incidental  clause  found  in  an  article  concern- 
ing one  doctrine,  ought  to  be  inevitable  and  irresistible  in 
its  inference  in  order  to  make  it  equivalent  to  a  direct  state- 


42 

ment  which  is  wholly  absent  when  and  where  it  properly 
belongs. 

It  is  further  to  be  noticed  that  the  object  of  the  article  cited  is 
not  to  affirm,  nor  does  it  assert,  that  the  effectually  called  are 
called  iu  this  life.  This  may  be  implied,  but  the  purpose  of 
the  article  is  to  state  that  certain  blessings  come  in  this  life 
to  the  effectually  called.  The  obvious  purpose  of  the  article 
therefore  is  not  friendly  to  the  supposition  that  it  was  intended 
to  decide  a  wholly  different  question,  namely  whether  some 
persons  may  be  effectually  called  and  saved  in  another  life. 

This  brings  to  view  another  difficulty.  The  article  before 
us  does  not  deal  with  the  number  of  the  elect,  or  make  any 
statement  or  involve  any  implication  on  this  subject.  Its 
purpose  is  not  to  define  or  determine  who  are  effectually 
called,  but  simply  to  assure  believers  that  the  gospel  has  for 
them  great  and  heavenly  blessings  which  they  may  partake 
of  in  this  life  of  conflict  and  toil.  It  is  forcing  language 
written  for  such  a  use  to  make  it  serve  as  the  statement  of  a 
dogma  respecting  the  question  what  opportunities  may  exist 
for  the  implantation  and  beginning  of  saving  faith.  The 
article  is  written  for  Christian  believers.  It  is  taken  directly 
from  the  Shorter  Catechism.  It  deals  solely  with  believers, 
and  presupposes  their  existence.  The  heathen  are  no  more 
within  its  view  than  the  angels.  It  is  a  violation  of  the  ac- 
cepted canons  of  interpretation  to  make  it  cover  and  decide 
questions  of  a  different  order,  relating  to  a  different  class. 

I  think  these  considerations  are  sufficient  of  themselves  to 
warrant  the  rejection  of  this  method  of  proof.  We  are  not, 
however,  merely  warranted  in  thus  discarding  it.  A  careful 
and  thorough  examination  of  the  article  leads  to  conclusions 
which  absolutel}'  require  such  a  result.  For  it  becomes  evi- 
dent that  the  interpretation  I  am  opposing  not  merely  forces 
the  meaning  of  the  article  but  makes  it  contradictory  to  the 
Standards  of  which  its  original  formed  a  part,  and  puts  it  out 
of  harmony  with  the  Creed  to  which  it  has  been  transferred. 

The  article,  as  I  have  stated,  is  simply  appropriated  from 
the  Shorter  Catechism.  Unless  there  is  some  decisive  reason 
to  the  contrary  it    must    bear  the    meaning   as    transferred 


43 

which  it  has  in  its  original  appearance.  Any  interpretation 
which  it  is  impossible  to  give  to  it  as  first  written  certainly 
cannot  he  necessary  when  it  is  simply  repeated ;  and  when, 
in  addition,  we  find  that  the  same  impossibility  also  appears 
in  its  new  connection,  we  are  compelled  wholly  to  reject  such 
an  explanation. 

It  will  perhaps  make  my  argument  more  clear  if  I  first 
reduce  the  reasoning  I  am  opposing  to  the  syllogistic  form, 
and  then  show  where  it  fails.     It  may  be  stated  thus : 

The  effectually  called  are  the  elect. 

The  effectually  called  receive  salvation  in  this  life. 

Therefore  the  elect  receive  salvation  in  this  life. 

The  elect  are  saved  in  this  life. 

None  but  the  elect  are  saved. 

Therefore  none  are  saved  except  in  this  life. 

This  reasoning  confuses  certain  specified  blessings  of  sal- 
vation with  the  beginning  or  principle  of  salvation.  But 
letting  this  pass  it  is  valid  only  in  case  the  minor  premise 
of  the  first  syllogism  must  mean :  All  the  effectually  called 
receive  salvation  in  this  life.  But  this  indispensable  exten- 
sion of  the  minor  premise  is  impossible  on  any  just  principles 
of  interpretation  of  either  the  Catechism  or  the  Creed,  and 
therefore  the  reasoning  breaks  down.  For  if  there  may  be 
some  who  are  effectually  called,  and  therefore  are  of  the  elect 
and  therefore  will  be  saved,  who  do  not  receive  this  salvation 
here  they  must  be  saved  elsewhere ;  which  is  precisely  the 
hope  of  Progressive  Orthodoxy. 

The  Westminster  Standards  affirm  that  "elect  infants, 
dying  in  infancy,  are  regenerated  and  saved  by  Christ  through 
the  Spirit,  who  worketh  when,  where,  and  how  He  pleaseth. 
So  also  are  all  other  elect  persons  who  are  incapable  of  being 
outwardly  called  by  the  ministry  of  the  word." 

Now  if  the  "  effectually  called,"  in  the  article  quoted  from 
the  Catechism  and  adopted  into  the  Creed,  include  all  the 
elect,  then  we  must  hold  that  elect  infants  receive  in  this 
life  the    blessings  which  are  enumerated,  and  so  also  must 


44 

all  other  elect  persons  who  are  incapable  of  hearing  the 
gospel.  What  now  are  these  blessings  ?  The  article  before 
us  enumerates  them  in  part.  They  are  "justification,  adop- 
tion, and  sanctification  and  the  several  benefits  which  do 
either  accompany  or  flow  from  them."  In  the  Shorter  Cat- 
echism these  "  benefits  "  are  explained  to  be  "assurance  of 
God's  love,  joy  in  the  Holy  Ghost,  increase  of  grace  and 
perseverance  therein  to  the  end." 

If,  then,  the  effectually  called  referred  to  in  the  article 
under  consideration  embrace  all  the  elect,  and,  as  is  ex- 
pressly stated,  there  are  "elect  infants  "  and  elect  "  other  per- 
sons "  who  never  are  "  outwardly  called  by  the  ministry  of  the 
word,"  it  follows  that  all  these  infants  who  die  in  infancy, 
and  these  other  persons  who  never  hear  the  gospel,  receive 
in  this  life  the  blessings  included  in  justification,  adoption 
and  sanctification,  and  the  other  benefits  described  ;  —  that  is, 
they  experience  in  this  life  'conviction  of  sin,  enlightenment  in 
the  knowledge  of  Christ,  renewal  of  will,  the  Spirit's  persua- 
sion and  power  to  embrace  Jesus  Christ  freely  offered  in  the 
gospel,  pardon  and  acceptance  as  righteous  in  God's  sight, 
the  imputation  of  Christ's  righteousness  which  is  received 
by  faith  alone,  reception  into  the  number  and  admission  to 
all  the  privileges  of  the  sons  of  God,  ability  more  and  more 
to  die  unto  sin  and  live  unto  righteousness,  assurance  of 
God's  love,  peace  of  conscience,  joy  in  the  Holy  Ghost, 
increase  of  grace  and  perseverance  therein  to  the  end.' 
Blessed  infants!  But  who  in  his  senses  can  think  of  putting 
an  interpretation  on  this  article  which  commits  it  to  such 
absurdities? 

We  are  still  however  far  from  being  through  with  these 
consequences.  For  there  is  another  alternative.  If  the 
"  effectually  called  "  in  the  article  before  us  are  all  the  elect, 
and  all  the  elect  consequently  receive  all  these  blessings  in 
this  life,  it  follows  that  only  those  are  effectually  called  to 
whom  such  a  description  applies.  Now  it  is  impossible  to 
apply  it  to  the  experience  of  infants  and  persons  who  know 
nothing  of  Christ.  Hence  we  must  conclude  that  there  are 
no  "  elect  infants,"   and  no   "  other  elect   persons "  beyond 


45 

the  reach  of  the  Christian  ministry  —  not  a  soul  imprisoned 
here  from  the  light  which  is  so  pleasant  and  the  truth  which 
is  life,  among  the  elect ;  not  a  pagan  child  or  woman  or  man, 
—  not  one  elected  ;  and  therefore  all  are  forever  lost ! 

The  simple  truth  is,  as  I  have  said,  that  the  Catechism 
was  written  for  believers  and  their  children,  for  Christian  fam- 
ilies and  peoples.  It  was  not  composed  before  the  Fall, 
or  the  Incarnation,  nor  in  Africa.  Torture  its  definitions, 
extort  an  unnatural  meaning,  and  you  make  a  consistent 
interpretation  of  the  Westminster  statements  concerning 
effectual  calling  impossible. 

It  is  important  to  notice  that  the  Seminary  Creed  recog- 
nizes the  Westminster  and  Savoy  distinction  between  the 
ordinary  means  of  grace  and  those  which  the  Spirit  may 
employ  at  his  good  pleasure.  It  thus  requires  for  its  consist- 
ent interpretation  that  the  article  respecting  the  benefits 
received  in  this  life  by  the  "  effectually  called  "  be  not  pressed 
beyond  its  original  purpose  and  scope.  Where  the  Creed 
speaks  of  the  way  in  which  men  become  "  partakers  of  the 
benefits  of  redemption "  it  says :  '•  the  ordinary  means  by 
which  these  benefits  are  communicated  to  us  are  the  word 
sacraments  and  prayer."  The  phrase  "  the  ordinary  means  " 
is  from  the  Westminster  Standards  and  recalls  the  antithe- 
sis already  noticed. 

The  article  in  the  Creed  connects  thus  with  the  same 
larger  circle  of  thought  recognized  by  the  Westminster 
divines.  It  would  be  against  the  whole  stream  of  history  to 
put  upon  a  Creed  prepared  in  New  England  at  the  beginning 
of  the  nineteenth  century  as  a  basis  of  union  of  all  phases  of 
Calvinism,  a  narrower  construction  than  that  intended  for 
the  same  words  by  theologians  a  century  and  a  half  earlier. 
The  Westminster  divines  admitted  a  wider  working  of  God's 
grace  than  they  could  define,  and  now  the  Andover  Creed 
which  copies  their  words,  and  at  the  same  time  teaches  a 
universal  atonement,  is  to  be  interpreted  so  as  to  shut  the 
door  which  even  the  men  who  held  to  a  limited  atonement, 
to  say  the  least,  did  not  close  ! 

And  after  all,  supposing  that  the  article  before  us  were 


46 

tli us  perverted  from  its  purpose,  and  made  inconsistent  with 
its  history  and  the  Creed,  it  would  not  then  teach  that  the 
heathen  can  have  no  future  opportunity  of  grace,  but  simply 
that  they  will  not  avail  themselves  of  it  any  more  than  do 
the  non-elect  who  have  this  opportunity  here.  And  who 
can  believe  that  the  Founders  both  bungled  and  were  irrev- 
erent in  this  fashion,  as  would  be  true  of  them  if  they 
intended  to  have  this  article  construed  as  proposed. 

A  statement  certainly  ought  to  be  absolutely  decisive  to 
justify  an  interpretation  loaded  with  so  many  difficulties  and 
even  impossibilities.  As  it  stands,  so  far  is  it  from  being 
thus  conclusive  that  such  a  use  of  it  turns  it  from  its  appar- 
ent purpose,  attributes  to  it  a  design  unsupported  by  evi- 
dence, puts  it  into  contrariety  with  other  declarations  in  the 
same  Standards,  and  requires  an  interpretation  of  the  Creed 
that  makes  it  a  condition  of  office  at  Andover  to  teach  what 
never  has  been  taught  there  from  the  beginning,  namely, 
that  all  who  do  not  hear  the  gospel  in  this  life,  including 
all  infants  and  young  children,  and  multitudes  of  the  unfor- 
tunate who  have  lived  in  Christian  lands  without  the  requi- 
site organs  of  mental  and  moral  life,  are  not  among  the 
"  effectually  called,"  and  therefore  are  not  of  the  "  elect,"  and 
therefore  are  lost  forever.  And  such  logic  is  to  be  applied 
to  the  Creed  in  order  to  squeeze  out  of  it,  if  possible,  what 
the  framers  of  it  would  not  write  in  it  when  they  composed 
the  article  respecting  the  doom  of  the  wicked. 

Besides  this  inferential  argument,  I  know  of  but  one  other 
which  is  employed  in  order  to  render  it  impossible  for  a  Pro- 
fessor at  Andover  to  hope  that  a  universal  gospel  may  have 
some  provision  of  mercy  for  the  millions  upon  millions  who 
do  not  hear  of  it  in  this  life. 

It  has  been  supposed  that  the  Founders  defined  pretty 
clearly  in  their  Creed  the  doctrinal  test  which  they  desired 
to  impose.  Until  very  lately  no  other  has  been  so  much  as 
suggested.  But  the  same  ingenuity  which  has  extracted  a 
modal  Trinity  out  of  phraseology  which  used  the  long  estab- 
lished and  technical  nomenclature  of  an  ontological  Trinity, 
and  which  has  treated  the  articles  of  Progressive    Orthodoxy 


47 

as  though  they  were  a  bushel  of  words  out  of  which  children 
might  construct  sentences  to  suit  themselves,  has  discov- 
ered in  the  Statutes  a  new  Creed.  We  have  had.  before 
disputes  over  the  Original  Founders'  Declaration,  and  the 
Creed  of  the  Associate  Founders  ;  but  now  there  appears 
a  third  one,  never  before  known,  nor  suspected.  Certainly 
these  Statutes  are  progressive,  if  Orthodoxy  is  not.  This 
new  Creed  is  discovered  in  the  Preamble  to  the  Statutes. 

In  the  deeply  interesting,  and  I  may  say  affecting,  Pream- 
ble to  the  Statutes  of  the  Associate  Foundation,  the  Associate 
Founders  mention  some  of  the  motives  which  led  them  to 
consecrate  their  gifts  to  the  purpose  of  "  increasing  the  num- 
ber of  learned  and  able  Defenders  of  the  Gospel  of  Christ, 
as  well  as  of  orthodox,  pious,  and  zealous  Ministers  of  the 
New  Testament."  Among  these  considerations  they  mention 
the  fatal  effects  of  the  apostasy  of  man  without  a  Saviour, 
the  merciful  object  of  the  Son  of  God  in  assuming  our  nature 
and  dying  for  our  salvation,  the  institution  of  the  Christian 
ministry,  and  the  fact  that  "  notwithstanding  this  appoint- 
ment the  greatest  part  of  the  human  race  is  still  perishing 
for  lack  of  vision."  These  latter  words  have  been  seized 
upon  and  turned  into  an  article  of  faith  and  a  condition  of 
the  trust  which  has  been  instituted. 

Such  a  use  of  them  when  explained  will  strike  every  can- 
did mind  as  illegitimate.  They  are  not  a  part  of  any  declara- 
tion, creed  or  promise  which  these  men  saw  fit  to  require  of 
those  to  whom  they  committed  their  trust.  They  are  simply 
declarations  of  a  motive  by  which  they  were  actuated  in 
making  their  gift,  to  be  respected  as  such,  to  be  regarded  so 
far  as  they  express  a  permanent  law  and  motive  of  Christian 
conduct,  but  not  to  be  exalted  to  a  position  which  the  Found- 
ers themselves  did  not  assign  them  ;  viz.,  that  of  a  required 
article  of  faith. 

I  say  this  chiefly  as  a  protest  against  the  method  of  this 
argument  of  the  complainants,  rather  than  against  its  matter. 
For  I  "  hold,  maintain  and  inculcate,"  as  my  own  belief  and 
as  a  motive  in  life,  that  men  are  perishing  for  lack  of  vision, 
i.e.,  for  the  want  of  a  knowledge  of  the  gospel.     Every  sinner 


48 

is  perishing,  and  is  in  danger  of  perishing  everlastingly,  and 
will  thus  perish  save  as  redeemed  by  Christ.  Paul,  as  a 
friend  has  suggested,  goes  so  far  as  to  say,  "  For  as  many  as 
have  sinned  without  law,  shall  also  perish  without  law." 
This  is  stronger  language  than  that  of  the  Founders.  I  sub- 
mit to  the  Apostle.  But  how  would  Paul,  were  he  on  the 
earth,  rebuke  men  who  still  persist,  after  the  clearest  demon- 
stration that  such  was  not  his  teaching,  in  claiming  that  his 
words  compel  us  to  hold  that  all  the  heathen  actually  perish, 
that  not  one  will  be  saved.  He  believed  that  men  were  per- 
ishing for  lack  of  vision,  but  not  that  this  exhausted  the  di- 
vine  purpose  concerning  them.  Many  of  them  did  not  perish, 
for  through  this  same  Apostle  they  heard  of  Christ,  and  be- 
lieved in  Him.  Multitudes  now  are  perishing,  but  whether 
everlastingly  or  not,  depends  on  something  not  taken  into 
account  when  such  language  is  used. 

It  states  the  truth,  but  not  the  whole  truth.  It  presents  a 
motive  which  every  Professor  at  Andover  should  be  governed 
by,  but  it  is  not  a  statement  of  a  doctrine  which  rules  out  all 
hope  for  the  heathen,  any  more  than  does  Paul's  stronger 
declaration,  "  As  many  as  have  sinned  without  law  shall  also 
perish  without  law,"  for  to  some  of  such  he  afterwards  wrote 
the  letter  known  as  the  Epistle  to  the  Ephesians,  with  its  glow- 
ing representation  of  the  revealed  mysterj'-,  and  its  assurance 
that  Hhe  dead  in  trespasses  and  sins,  ivithout  Christ,  having  no 
hope,  without  God  in  the  world,  now  had  access  by  one  Spirit 
unto  the  Father,  and  had  become  a  habitation  of  God  through 
the  Spirit.' 

There  is  one  other  consideration,  or  class  of  considerations, 
to  which  I  would  invite  your  special  attention  before  I  leave 
this  particular  numbered  eleven. 

In  the  reply  which  I  filed  Nov.  30,  referring  to  "oppor- 
tunity to  be  influenced  by  the  motive  of  an  offered  Saviour," 
the  remark  is  made:  "It  seems  to  be  implied  in  the  univer- 
sality of  Christ's  Person,  Atonement,  and  Judgment."  In 
Progressive  Orthodoxy,  this  universality  is  often  spoken  of 
as  a  principle,  "the  reality  of  Christ's  personal  relation  to 
the   human  race  as  a  whole,  and   to  every  member  of  it,  — 


49 

the  principle  of  the  universality  of  Christianity."  This 
principle  is  put  forward  as  the  key  to  the  whole  volume 
(pp.  3,  4). 

What  I  wish  now  to  submit  to  you  is,  that  this  principle 
is  covered,  and,  I  may  say,  is  made  prominent  in  the  Creed. 

The  Creed  affirms  the  Deity  of  Christ  and  his  Eternal 
Sonship.  This  Eternal  Son  became  man  and  continues  to 
be  God  and  Man  in  two  distinct  natures  and  one  person  for- 
ever. This  is  as  distinct  a  doctrine  as  words  can  contain  of 
the  universality  of  Christ's  Person  in  its  constitution.  He 
is  God,  —  you  cannot  limit  his  relation,  therefore,  without 
circumscribing  his  divinity.  I  speak  not  now  of  limitation 
in  method  of  revelation,  but  in  nature  or  essence.  He  is 
man,  but  so  that  his  manhood  unites  in  one  person  with  the 
Eternal  Son  ;  he  is  not  an  individual  member  of  the  race, 
therefore,  like  you  and  me,  but  its  universal  head.  Now 
take  a  step  forward  with  the  Creed  :  "  [I  believe]  that,  agree- 
ably to  the  covenant  of  redemption,  the  Son  of  God,  and 
he  alone,  by  his  suffering  and  death,  has  made  atonement  for 
the  sins  of  all  men."  I  shall  endeavor  to  show  further  on 
that  here  we  have  one  of  the  two  distinctive  notes  of  this 
Creed,  that  if  anything  in  the  Creed  must  be  taken  with 
absolute  literalness  and  in  the  full  force  of  its  language,  this 
a  fortiori  must  be.  It  is  enough  now  to  leave  it  with  this 
repetition  of  its  words,  Agreeably  to  the  covenant  of  redemp- 
tion, the  Son  of  God,  and  He  alone,  by  his  suffering  and 
death,  has  made  atonement  for  the  sins  of  all  men. 

Now  the  inference  which  my  associates  and  myself  have 
drawn  in  the  volume  called  Progressive  Orthodoxy,  is  to  our 
view  a  legitimate  and  even  necessary  deduction  from  the  prin- 
ciple thus  emphasized  in  the  Creed.  So  far  were  we  from 
supposing  that  we  were  teaching  contrary  to  the  Creed,  that 
we  regarded  ourselves  as  developing  one  of  its  most  character- 
istic principles,  namely  that  of  the  universality  of  the  religion 
of  the  cross  of  Christ.  We  were  fortified  in  this  conviction 
by  the  fact  that  there  is  another  principle  in  the  Creed  which 
also  aids  to  our  conclusion.  It,  too,  as  \  will  subsequently 
try  to  show,  is  a  characteristic,  a  special  note  and  feature  of 


50 

the  Creed.  I  refer  to  the  principle  that  God's  government  of 
mankind  deals  with  men  as  free  moral  agents,  that  sin  and 
righteousness  are  not  transferable  quantities  or  qualities,  nor 
passive  states,  but  imply  always  personal  agency.  God  deals 
not  only  with  man,  but  with  men,  every  man,  and  deals  with 
each  as  a  free  moral  agent.  Put  this  and  that  together  and 
grant  the  universality  of  Christianity,  and  that  every  man  is 
dealt  with  in  accordance  with  this  universality  as  a  free  moral 
agent,  and  we  have  the  entire  premise  of  our  argument.  And 
this  premise  is  not  only  in  the  Creed,  but  is  there  as  its  most 
distinctive  feature. 

I  suppose  no  one  will  question  that  we  have  a  right  to  the 
logic  of  the  Creed.  If  a  conclusion  thus  obtained  contra- 
dicts some  statement  elsewhere  made  in  the  same  document, 
a  question  of  interpretation  arises.  But  I  need  not  stop  to 
discuss  this  question  here,  for  the  Creed  makes  no  statement 
inconsistent  with  our  inference.  We  have  a  right,  therefore, 
to  our  conclusion  so  far  as  the  Creed  is  concerned.  That,  at 
any  rate,  does  not  estop  us.  It  is  not  a  condition  of  the  trust 
we  have  received  that  no  such  inference  be  drawn,  even  if 
the  inference  be  incorrect.  The  Founders  have  imposed 
upon  your  Reverend  and  Honorable  Body  serious  responsibil- 
ities, but  I  think  you  will  not  regret  that  you  are  not  made 
responsible  for  every  instance  of  bad  logic  on  the  part  of 
each  Andover  Professor. 

I  know  not  that  I  need  weary  you  with  any  detailed  reply 
to  the  remaining  particulars  in  the  Amended  Complaint.  I 
seem  to  myself  to  have  said  all  that  is  necessary  concerning 
them  in  the  Reply  which  has  been  filed. 

I  think,  also,  that  I  have  now  covered  the  ground  which 
has  been  definitely  chosen  for  the  present  issue  by  the  com- 
plainants. Everything  else  which  they  have  introduced  is 
not  sufficiently  specific  and  plain  as  an  accusation  to  enable 
and  require  me  to  answer  it. 

I  claim  therefore  that  upon  every  one  of  the  charges  which 
are  properly  in  issue  the  complainants  have  failed  to  show 


51 

that  I  "  hold,  maintain  and  inculcate  "  in  my  office  as  Pro- 
fessor anything  not  in  harmony  with  or  antagonistic  to  the 
Creed  and  Statutes  of  the  Seminary,  and  that  I  am  therefore 
entitled  to  a  complete  acquittal.  And  here  I  might  safely, 
I  doubt  not,  rest  my  case. 

But  I  ask  your  indulgence  in  the  peculiar  position  in 
which  I  am  placed,  in  submitting  some  further  considera- 
tions, strictly  relevant,  as  I  conceive,  to  the  preceding 
issue,  but  derived  from  a  broader  range  of  views  than  has 
been  possible  in  following  one  by  one  particular  accusations. 

The  official  pledges  and  promises  at  Andover  do  not 
require  the  Professors  to  think  and  teach  in  all  respects 
alike.  They  do,  however,  make  it  imperative  that  we  should 
open  and  explain  the  Scriptures  to  our  pupils  with  integrity 
and  faithfulness.  They  impose  upon  us  the  sacred  obliga- 
tion to  unfold  the  truths  of  the  Creed  in  opposition  to  past 
heresies  and  current  errors  which  are  hazardous  to  men, 
according  to  the  best  light  God  shall  give  us.  This  is  a  law 
for  the  conscience  of  every  Professor. 

This  1  have  promised.  How  am  I  to  keep  this  promise? 
This  inquiry  involves  these  practical  questions.  How  am  I 
to  accept  the  Creed  of  the  Seminary?  How  ought  I  to 
accept  it?     How  ought  you  to  require  me  to  accept  it? 

I  raise  deliberately  this  larger  question,  with  all  that  it 
includes.  I  should  have  been  glad,  if  instead  of  compelling 
me  to  wander  through  the  long  and  tedious  list  of  preposter- 
ous charges  which  I  have  reviewed,  the  complainants  had 
raised  directly  the  vital  issue,  although  it  is  perhaps  credita- 
ble to  their  sagacity  that  they  have  not. 

I  maintain — you  will  pardon  me  if,  under  the  conviction 
of  the  utter  unreasonableness  of  the  attack  which  has  been 
made  upon  our  fidelity  and  our  liberties,  I  do  maintain  — 
that  we  are  entitled  at  your  hands  to  something  more  than  a 
technical  acquittal.  We  have  endeavored,  in  sincerity  and 
good  conscience,  to  put  our  Lord's  money  out  to  usury.  It 
has  well  been  said  that  if  there  are  perils  in  such  a  course 
there  are  greater  perils  in  the  opposite  course.  The  man 
who  buried  his  talent  was  very  faithful  and  very  conserva- 


52 

live,  as  some  men  understand  fidelity  and  conservatism,  but 
our  Lord  applied  to  him  other  designations.  We  have 
received  the  Creed  of  the  Seminary  as  a  sacred  trust.  We 
have  sought  to  put  its  truths  out  to  usury.  No  man,  in  my 
humble  judgment,  really  takes  the  Creed  of  the  Seminary, 
no  man  is  fit  to  be  a  teacher  of  young  men  on  its  founda- 
tions, who  does  not  thus  endeavor.  It  has  been  said,  that 
eventually  there  will  be  two  sets  of  Professors  at  Andover ; 
one  who  will  take  the  Creed  and  do  little  else,  another  that 
will  give  the  lectures.  I  may  be  wrong,  but  I  have  not  sup- 
posed, this  to  be  the  "  true  intention  "  of  the  Founders. 

Permit  me  then  to  state  the  principles  by  which  I  have 
been  governed  in  my  acceptance  and  use  of  the  Creed,  that 
is,  in  fulfilling  my  promise  to  maintain  and  inculcate  the 
Christian  faith  as  expressed  in  the  Creed  ...  "so  far  as 
may  appertain  to  my  office,  according  to  the  best  light  God 
shall  give  me  ..." 

1.  I  accept  the  Creed  as  it  is  written.  I  have  supposed  my 
first  duty  to  be  to  understand  what  it  says,  to  gather  its 
meaning  from  its  own  words,  interpreting  them  by  the  ordi- 
nary and  established  rules  of  interpretation.  With  this 
understanding  of  the  formula  I  take  the  Creed  literally.  I 
reject  as  dishonest  the  theories  of  creed-subscription  desig- 
nated by  the  phrases  "  private  interpretation,"  "  non-natural 
sense." 

2.  I  accept  the  Creed  in  the  outcome  and  completeness  of  its 
meaning  when  compared  part  with  part.  I  do  not  find  its 
meaning  in  one  article  alone,  for  there  are,  besides  the  Dec- 
laration, thirty-six  distinct  articles.  I  subscribe  not  merely 
to  the  words  of  the  Creed,  but  rather  to  the  meaning  which 
the  words  yield  when  part  is  compared  with  part,  article  with 
article,  clause  with  clause.  Occasionally  a  single  technical 
word  may  modify  an  entire  article,  as  the  word  "  consti- 
tuted "  which  may  be  understood  to  contain  a  theory  going 
back  to  the  Council  of  Trent  and  into  the  scholastic  dis- 
putes between  the  followers  of  Aquinas  and  those  of  Duns 
Scotus,  or  the  word  "  Person  "  in  the  article  on  the  Trinity, 
which  has  <t  history  from  the  days  of   Tertullian  ;  or   the 


53 

word  "  personally"  in  the  article  on  Depravity,  which  has  in 
it  the  outcome  of  disputes  between  different  schools  of  Cal- 
vinism, as  well  as  between  Calvinists  and  Arminians,  which 
had  been  going  on  for  centuries. 

Whatever  is  the  outcome  of  the  Creed  as  a  whole  I  accept. 

An  opposite,  or  apparently  opposite  theory  of  subscription 
has  been  asserted  with  great  positive ness  and  argued  with 
much  force.  It  is  that  a  Professor  in  signing  the  Creed 
accepts  each  article  by  itself.  I  admit  the  obligation  to 
believe  in  every  doctrine  of  the  Creed,  and  to  an  acceptance 
of  every  article  as  it  forms  a  consistent  part  of  the  whole  ; 
but  I  deny  the  binding  force  of  each  individual  statement, 
taken  apart  from  other  statements.  It  is  said  :  You  affirm 
your  belief  in  each.  My  reply  is,  that  I  cannot  be  required 
to  believe  in  contradictions,  and  that  the  Creed  must  be 
allowed  to  interpret  itself.  I  cannot  suppose  that  in  the 
same  breath  the  Founders  intended  to  require  me  to  be  a 
"  consistent "  Calvinist  and  to  take  an  inconsistent  Creed. 
They  must  therefore  have  intended  to  give  me  liberty  of 
interpretation  as  respects  particular  articles. 

Let  me  make  this  clear  by  an  example.  When  the  Creed 
comes  to  the  topic  of  Redemption  it  takes  three  articles  in 
succession  from  the  Catechism  and  adds  a  fourth  original  to 
itself.     The  articles  read  :  — 

"  [I  believe]  that  God  of  his  mere  good  pleasure  from  all  eter- 
nit}7  elected  some  to  everlasting  life,  and  that  he  entered  into  a 
covenant  of  grace  to  deliver  them  out  of  this  state  of  sin  and 
misery  by  a  Redeemer ;  that  the  only  Redeemer  of  the  elect  is  the 
eternal  Son  of  God,  who  for  this  purpose  became  man,  and  con- 
tinues to  be  God  and  man  in  two  distinct  natures  and  one  person 
forever ;  That  Christ,  as  our  Redeemer,  executeth  the  office  of  a 
Prophet,  Priest  and  King ;  that  agreeably  to  the  covenant  of 
redemption,  the  Son  of  God,  and  He  alone,  b}r  His  suffering  and 
death,  has  made  atonement  for  the  sins  of  all  men." 

Down  to  these  last  words  we  have  the  language,  the  ipsis- 
sima  verba,  of  the  Catechism.  And  even  in  this  article  we 
have  the  traditional  formula  "  covenant  of  redemption." 


54 

Now  if  you  take  these  articles,  each  as  it  stands,  giving  to 
each  its  natural,  historical,  full  meaning,  you  are  involved  in 
an  insoluble  contradiction  of  belief.  The  first  three  articles 
state  in  unequivocal  terms  the  doctrine  of  limited  atonement: 
the  fourth  expresses  plainly  the  doctrine  of  universal  atone- 
ment. In  other  parts  of  the  Creed  it  is  claimed  that  phrase- 
ology is  employed  broad  enough  to  admit  the  theories  of  all 
parties  to  the  coalition,  the  Old  or  High  Calvinists,  the  Mod- 
erate Calvinists,  and  the  Hopkinsian  Calvinists.  However 
tli is  may  be,  here,  at  least,  the  first  party  completely  surren- 
dered. It  is  just  possible  that  if  he  had  chosen  so  to  do  a 
High  Calvinist  might  have  said  "  made  atonement  for " 
means  "sufficient  for"  and  nothing  more,  but  this  puts  a 
strain  upon  the  words.  They  signified  much  more  than 
this  to  the  Hopkinsians.  They  meant  more  to  the  first  Pro- 
fessor of  Christian  Theology  at  Andover,  who  received  his 
nomination  to  their  chair  from  the  so-called  Original  Founders, 
as  appears  from  his  celebrated  missionary  sermon  at  Salem  in 
1812,  in  which  he  emphasizes  the  motive  of  an  atonement 
not  only  "  sufficient  for  Asiatics  and  Africans,"  but  "  made  for 
them  as  well  as  for  us."  We  may  not  doubt  that  they  were 
understood  in  their  evangelical  sense  by  Moderate  Calvinists 
who  aided  in  the  counsels  from  which  the  Seminary  originated. 
Perhaps  I  spoke  too  strongly  when  I  used  of  any  Calvinist 
who  had  a  part  in  the  construction  or  institution  of  the  Creed 
the  word  "  surrendered  "  ;  there  may  have  been  no  resistance, 
no  disagreement  at  this  point,  though  the  earlier  Calvinists 
of  New  England,  represented  by  Samuel  Willard,  spurned 
even  the  concession  that  Christ's  death  was  "  sufficient "  for 
all. 

We  have  thus  in  the  Creed  new  language,  expressing  what 
was  still  a  novelty  in  Calvinistic  doctrine,  the  truth  that 
Christ  on  the  cross  died  for  all  men,  thrust  into  immediate 
sequence  upon  the  established  and  traditional  formulas  which 
had  affirmed  for  nearly  all  the  preceding  generations  in  New 
England  that  He  died  for  the  elect  only.  I  say  only,  for 
though  this  word  does  not  occur  in  these  formulas,  its  mean- 
ing is  indelibly  impressed  on  them.     It  is  there  by  the  tech- 


55 

nical  and  well-understood  use  of  terms,  there  emphatically 
by  the  necessary  connection  and  logic  of  the  chosen  articles, 
there  unmistakably  and  completely.  First  you  have  the 
decree  of  election,  then  the  covenant  of  grace  which  in- 
cluded the  eternal  covenant  of  Redemption  between  the 
Father  and  the  Son  and  the  elect  in  Him ;  then,  in  pursu- 
ance of  this  electing  decree,  the  incarnation  of  the  Eternal 
Son,  who,  as  our  Redeemer,  i.e.,  as  Redeemer  of  the  elect, 
executed  the  office  not  only  of  Prophet  and  King,  but  of 
Priest,  in  which  latter  office,  as  the  Catechism  explains,  and 
the  traditional  theology  fully  agreed,  He  offered  "  up  of  him- 
self a  sacrifice  to  satisfy  divine  justice  and  reconcile  us  to 
God,"  all,  3rou  notice,  as  Redeemer  of  the  elect,  and  for  the 
elect,  and  in  pursuance  of  the  decree  of  election.  I  see  not 
how  any  man  who  takes  these  articles  literally  as  they  stand, 
who  sneers  at  taking  the  Creed  "  in  the  gross,"  and  insists 
on  the  acceptance  of  every  doctrinal  statement,  can  possibly 
extricate  himself  from  the  necessity  of  first  saying :  "  I  be- 
lieve that  Christ  executeth  his  office  of  priest  under  the 
decree  of  election,  and  for  the  purpose  of  that  election,"  and 
then  of  immediately  confessing  "  I  believe  that  he  executeth 
this  office  of  priest  under  a  different  decree  and  for  another 
purpose,  namely,  to  die  for  the  sins  of  the  non-elect  as  well 
as  of  the  elect."  There  is,  indeed,  one  supposable  way  out 
of  the  contradiction,  that  of  assuming  that  the  whole  race  is 
elected,  or  predetermined,  to  salvation,  as  Schleiermacher 
believed ;  but  this  is  only  a  temporary  escape,  for,  apart  from 
the  difficulty  of  interpreting  the  word  "  some  "  as  meaning 
all,  the  closing  sentences  of  the  Creed  are  unfriendly  to  a 
doctrine  of  universal  restorationism,  and  the  subscriber  would 
find  that  he  had  only  exchanged  one  contradiction  for 
another. 

This  antagonism  in  the  Creed  of  two  doctrines  of  the 
atonement  might  be  confirmed  by  tracing  in  detail  the  devel- 
opment of  the  two  phrases  "covenant  of  grace"  and  "cove- 
nant of  redemption,"  and  of  the  doctrine  of  the  order  of  the 
divine  decrees,  but  I  have  said  enough  by  way  of  illustration  — 
I  am  satisfied  that  it  is  simply  impossible  to  take  the  Creed 


56 

in  the  way  which  I  am  opposing.  I  do  not  believe  such  a 
method  ever  would  have  been  thought  of  but  for  the  exigen- 
cies of  controversy.  There  is  a  simple  way  out  of  these  diffi- 
culties,—  simple,  but  like  man}'  another  simple  principle  it 
is  found,  when  thoroughly  applied,  to  be  fruitful  in  important 
results.  It  is  the  path  which  the  framers  of  the  Creed  must 
have  intended  should  be  followed,  —  its  acceptance  as  a  whole 
and  as  it  interprets  itself. 

3.  I  accept  the  Creed  for  substance  of  doctrine.  I  employ 
this  phrase  under  certain  very  careful  restrictions.  Were  it 
not  for  the  phrases  "federal  head  and  representative,"  "cove- 
nant of  grace,"  "  covenant  of  redemption,"  I  should  not  need 
to  use  it  at  all,  and  I  am  not  sure  but  that  what  I  have  said 
about  taking  the  Creed  as  a  whole  comprehends  whatever 
qualification  I  give  to  these  terms.  Still,  for  the  sake  of  the 
utmost  explicitness,  I  will  state  precisely  what  latitude  I  sup- 
pose this  mode  of  taking  the  Creed  permits.  I  do  not  under- 
stand that  I  am  availing  myself  thereby  of  any  other  liberty 
than  the  framers  intended  should  be  used,  or  than  was  exer- 
cised while  they  were  living  and  acting  as  Visitors,  and  than 
has  been  acknowledged  and  practised  ever  since. 

The  phrase  "  for  substance  of  doctrine  "  appears  in  the 
Preface  to  the  Cambridge  Platform,  adopted  by  the  Synod  of 
1648.  Referring  to  the  Confession  "agreed  upon  by  the 
reverend  assembly  of  divines  at  Westminster,"  the  Preface 
says :  "  Finding  the  sum  and  substance  thereof,  in  matters 
of  doctrine,  to  express  not  their  own  judgment  only,  but 
ours  also  ...  we  thought  good  to  present  ...  to  our 
churches  .  .  .  our  professed  and  hearty  assent  and  attesta- 
tion to  the  whole  confession  of  faith  (for  substance  of  doc- 
trine)." The  Synod  also  passed  unanimously  a  vote  ex- 
pressing "  consent  thereunto,  for  the  substance  thereof." 
From  that  early  time  on  this  method  of  accepting  a  Creed  or 
Platform  has  obtained  in  New  England.  In  his  letters  to  Dr. 
Ware,  the  first  Abbot  Professor,  enjoying  the  confidence  of 
both  sets  of  Founders  of  the  Seminary  and  pre-eminent  in  his 
exertions  to  ensure  the  union,  and  writing  only  four  years 
after  a  "perpetual  union  "  was  "established,"  remarked:  "As 


57 

it  is  one  object  of  these  Letters  to  make  you  acquainted  with 
the  real  opinions  of  the  Orthodox  in  New  England,  I  would 
here  say,  with  the  utmost  frankness,  that  we  are  not  perfectly 
satisfied  with  the  language  used  on  this  subject  [Imputation] 
in  the  Assembly's  Catechism.  .  .  .  Hence  it  is  common  for 
us,  when  we  declare  our  assent  to  the  Catechism,  to  do  it 
with  an  express  or  implied  restriction."  !  Dr.  Woods  subse- 
quently modified  his  interpretation  of  the  Catechism,  but  his 
testimony  as  to  the  custom  and  feeling  of  the  Orthodox  at 
that  time  and  to  his  own  liberty  is  not  thereby  affected.  Dr. 
Humphrey,  President  of  Amherst  College,  and  a  Visitor  of 
the  Seminary,  once  remarked,  "No  mortal  man,  with  a  mind 
of  his  own,  ever  accepted  the  Westminster  Catechism  without 
qualifications  of  his  own."  "  He  was  right,"  adds  Professor 
Phelps,  "  the  same  is  true  of  every  Confession,  —  unless  it  be 
some  brief  compendium  of  historic  fact,  rather  than  of  doc- 
trine, like  the  Apostles'  Creed."2  And  the  editor  of  the 
Congregationalist,  between  four  and  five  years  since,3  defend- 
ing himself  from  the  imputation  of  hostility  to  creeds,  espe- 
cially the  Andover  Creed,  remarked,  ..."  for  substance  we 
heartily  accept  it,  as  Professors  Park  and  Phelps  have  always 
done." 

Even  that  stern  censor  of  former  Professors  at  Andover, 
Rev.  Daniel  Dana,  D.D.,  while  contending  against  their  here- 
sies, made  this  noteworthy  concession :  "  Nor  will  I  contend 
that  the  man  who  has  taken  a  lengthened  creed  should  be 
trammelled  by  all  the  minutiae,  which  it  may  embrace.4  And 
Dr.  Hodge,  in  the  Princeton  Review,  speaking  for  the  Old 
School  wing  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  nearly  a  generation 
ago,  remarked  (I  use  this  extract  on  the  a  fortiori  principle)  : 

"  It  is  a  perYectly  notorious  fact,  that  there  are  hundreds  of  min- 
isters in  our  Church,  and  that  there  always  have  been  such  minis- 
ters, who  do  not  receive  all  the  propositions  contained  in  the 
Confession  of  Faith  and  Catechisms.   .   .  .  The  principle  that  the 

i  Letters  to  Unitarians,  Andover,  1820,  p.  45. 

2  Quoted  by  Rev.  Dr.  Fiske  in  The  Creed  of  Andover  Theol.  Sem.,  1882,  p.  32. 

3  June  21,  1882. 

4  Sermon  on  the  Faith  of  Former  Times,  1848,  note  to  p.  16. 


58 

adoption  of  the  Confession  of  Faith  implies  the  adoption  of  all 
the  propositions  therein  contained  ...  is  impracticable  .  .  .  "is 
more  than  the  vast  majority  of  our  ministers  either  do  or  can 
do.  To  make  them  profess  to  do  it  is  a  great  sin.  It  hurts 
their  conscience.  It  fosters  a  spirit  of  evasion  and  subterfuge. 
It  teaches  them  to  take  creeds  in  a  '  non-natural  sense.'  It  at 
once  vitiates  and  degrades."  1 

A  common  method  in  New  England  may  be  illustrated  by 
an  extract  from  the  covenant  of  the  Church  in  Salem,  of 
which  Dr.  Daniel  Hopkins,  the  brother  of  Dr.  Samuel  Hop- 
kins, was  pastor  from  1778  to  1814,  —  the  church,  it  is  of 
further  special  interest  to  note,  with  which  the  Associate 
Founder  John  Norris  attended  worship. 

"  Professing  a  belief  in  the  Christian  Religion  as  contained  in 
the  Scriptures  of  the  Old  and  New  Testament,  and  embracing  that 
scheme  of  doctrine  which  is  exhibited  in  what  is  called  The  Assem- 
bly's .Shorter  Catechism,  as  expressing,  for  substance,  those  impor- 
tant truths  which  God  has  revealed  to  us  in  his  holy  word."  And 
again  :  "  Knowing  the  necessity  of  order  and  discipline  in  every 
body  of  fallible  men,  we  promise  to  submit  ourselves  to  the  gov- 
ernment of  Christ  in  his  church  agreeably  to  the  directions  on  this 
subject  contained  in  the  eighteenth  chapter  of  Matthew,  and  as 
more  fully  set  forth  in  the  Platform  of  Church  Discipline  drawn  up 
b}-  the  Congregational  Synod,  at  Cambridge,  New  England,  A.D. 
16  18,  which,  in  substance,  we  adopt,  as  agreeable  to  the  rules  and 
spirit  of  the  gospel."  2 

In  entire  concurrence  with  the  method  familiar  to  Dr. 
Hopkins  and  Mr.  Norris  at  Salem,  and  in  the  line  of  the  tes- 
timonies already  adduced,  are  the  reminiscences  and  testi- 
mony of  the  venerable  Gardiner  Spring,  a  son  of  Dr.  Samuel 
Spring,  one  of  the  authors  of  the  Seminary  Creed  and  one  of 
the  first  Visitors.  He  says,  referring  to  the  Westminster 
Confession  : 

"  Few,  in  this  age  of  inquiiy,  believe  every  word  of  it.  Nor  did 
our  fathers.     I  myself  made  two  exceptions  to  it  when  I  was  re- 

i  Reprinted  in  Church,  Polity,  pp.  330-332. 

2  The  Covenant  of  Third  Church  of  Christ  in  Salem,  Salem,  1841,  pp.  6,  7,  8. 


59 

ceivecl  into  the  Presbyter}-  of  New  York  fifty-five  }Tears  ago.  Nor 
were  those  exceptions  any  barrier  to  my  admission.1  I  am  no 
bigot  and  no  friend  to  innovations.  Let  our  Confession  and  Cate- 
chism stand.  .  .  .  Witherspoon,  Rodgers,  McWhorter,  Smith, 
Miller  and  Richards  were  not  men  of  strife,  nor  did  they  lend  their 
influence  to  awaken  jealousies,  heart  burnings,  and  chilling  aliena- 
tions among  those  who  ought  to  love  as  brethren.  We  have  no 
Act  of  Uniformity  to  compel  a  perfect  unanimity  in  every  minute 
article  of  so  extended  a  Confession.  There  are  shades  of  thought 
and  forms  of  expression,  in  regard  to  which  men  will  not  cease  to 
think  for  themselves.  I  could  specify  many  points  in  which  not  a 
few  of  our  ministers  and  ruling  elders  do  not  exactly  agree  with 
our  standards.  Yet  they  are  all  honest  Calvinists,  and  receive 
our  standards  as  the  most  unexceptionable  formularies  ever  drawn 
up  by  uninspired  men,  and  receive  them  as  a  whole  with  all  their 
hearts.  The  iron  bed  of  Procrustes  is  not  suited  to  the  spirit  of 
the  age.  Some  modern  Theseus  will  3'et  be  raised  up,  and  show 
to  the  church  that  there  is  small  space  for  the  couch  of  bigotry  in 
the  nineteenth  century.2  " 

I  will  add  but  one  more  testimony,  and  this  not  from  a 
clergyman,  but  from  a  decision  of  the  Supreme  Court  of 
Massachusetts  rendered  by  Justice  Thacher  in  the  year 
1815. 

It  was  contended  that  a  legacy  to  the  Seminary  was  void, 
because  "  the  original  design  of  the  founders  of  the  Academy 
was  to  propagate  Calvinism,  as  containing  the  important 
principles  ...  of  our  holy  Christian  religion,  as  summarily 
expressed  in  the  Westminster  Assembly's  Shorter  Catechism  ; 
whereas,  the  design  of  the  donors  of  the  Associate  Founda- 
tion is  to  add  to  Calvinism  the  distinguishing  features  of  Kop- 
kinsianism,  a  union  or  mixture  inconsistent  with  the  original 
design  of  the  original  founders  of  the  Academy  and  of  the 
theological  institution."  It  was  further  contended,  that  if 
there  were  'but  one  single  article  in  the  Creed  contrary  to 
Calvinism,  or  a  single  article  omitted  from  the  Creed  which 
characterized    Calvinism    as    understood  at  the  time  of  the 

1  i.e.  1810.    Two  years  after  the  Associate  Foumlatiou  was  established. 

2  Life  and  Times  0/  Gardiner  Spring,  II.  pp.  21,  22. 


60 

foundation  of  the  Academy,'  the  legacy  was  null  and  void. 
The  Court  overruled  and  rejected  the  principle  that  a  Creed 
must  be  taken  in  its  several  articles  irrespective  of  other 
articles  or  equally  required  statements  of  doctrine. 

It  confirmed  as  of  legal  validity  the  principle  which  I  have 
stated  already  under  number  two  (2).  It  further  urged  the 
duty  of  "  charity  of  construction,"  by  which  "  technical  prop- 
ositions, should  not  be  pressed,  by  a  construction  "  astute,  nar- 
row and  uncharitable,"  into  an  antagonism  which  could  be 
avoided  ;  and,  applying  this  principle,  the  Judge  said  :  "  For 
myself,  I  confess  that  I  do  not  clearly  perceive  any  other 
sense  than  that  in  which  the  articles  mean  substantially  the 
same  thing,  notwithstanding  some  diversity  of  expression,  in 
which  they  can  be  said  to  be  true  and  consistent  with  the 
Christian  religion." 

I  quote  this  last  opinion,  not  merely  on  account  of  its 
great  weight  as  testimony,  but  because  it  indicates  the  true 
sense  and  application  in  the  case  before  us  of  the  phrases 
"  substantially  "  and  "  for  substance  of  doctrine." 

These  phrases  are  sometimes  objected  to,  not  without  rea- 
son, as  vague.  Dr.  Hodge  makes  this  criticism.  But  their 
convenience  and  utility  keep  them  in  use,  and  as  it  were 
compel  it.  Dr.  Hodge,  after  rejecting  them,  gives  illustra- 
tion upon  illustration  which  implies  his  acceptance  of  just 
what  they  are  commonly  understood  to  mean. 

These  phrases  do  not  mean  that  a  signature  for  substance 
of  doctrine  can  cover  a  method  by  which  the  substance  of  a 
creed  is  eliminated  ;  nor  one  by  which  any  doctrine  is  rejected 
which  belongs  to  a  creed  when  it  is  regarded  as  a  whole. 
They  cover  two  points:  first,  a  distinction  between  the 
necessary,  integral  parts  or  doctrines  of  a  creed  and  those 
which  are  subsidiary  and  non-essential ;  second,  a  distinction 
between  contents  [substance]  and  form. 

In  the  first  of  these  two  senses  it  may  be  thought  that  the 
phrases  "  for  substance  of  doctrine  "  or  "  substantially  "  can 
have  no  place  in  the  interpretation  of  a  creed  so  precise  as 
that  appointed  by  the  Associate  Founders.  Such  a  use,  it 
may  be  feared,  would  run  into  the  objectionable  method  by 


61 

which  a  doctrine  accepted  "for  substance"  is  "substantially" 
rejected.  I  admit  the  necessity  of  care  and  explicitness.  I 
deny,  however,  that  the  phrases  have  no  application,  or  are 
of  no  service.  They  embody  the  principle  expressed  by  Jus- 
tice Thacher  in  the  words  "  charity  of  construction." 

A  Creed  like  the  Andover  is  not  the  work  of  one  mind,  but 
of  many  minds  ;  not  of  one  age,  but  of  very  many.  Its  tradi- 
tional phraseology  is  the  larger  part  of  it.  It  deals  with 
many  subjects  which  are  only  approximately  apprehended  by 
the  Church  as  a  whole,  and  are  somewhat  differently  appre- 
hended by  various  schools  of  thought,  and  various  theolo- 
gians, all  of  whom,  however,  are  in  general  agreement.  Take 
what  are  called  the  mysteries  of  Christianity  —  the  Trinity, 
the  union  of  two  natures  in  one  Person.  The  Creed  of  Chal- 
cedon,  which  is  the  standard  orthodox  symbol  on  this  latter 
mystery,  is  called  in  the  records  a  "  boundary."  It  is  a  defi- 
nition in  the  sense  of  pointing  out  certain  errors  to  which 
faith  is  exposed  and  which  the  true  doctrine  will  exclude, 
certain  limits  on  either  side,  which  cannot  be  passed  without 
renouncing  certain  necessary  elements  of  belief.  The  Creed 
says:  'The  doctrine  is — there  are  two  natures;  hold  this 
theory  or  that,  and  you  deny  one  nature  or  the  other,  the 
divine  or  the  human.  The  doctrine  is:  There  is  one  person  ; 
hold  this  theory  or  that,  and  you  come  into  contradiction  to 
this  personal  unity.'  But  no  man  in  his  senses  ever  thought 
that  this  definition  gives  us  an  exhaustive  statement  of  the 
doctrine  of  the  Person  of  Christ,  or  shuts  up  a  man  who  con- 
fesses it  to  every  subsidiary  formula  which  men  have  invented 
in  endeavoring  more  firmly  to  apprehend  it,  or  more  fully  to 
appropriate  it.  It  lies  in  the  nature  of  the  truths  confessed 
in  a  creed,  that  they  are  not  measurable  nor  ponderable  nor 
definable  like  the  commodities  or  currencies  of  commerce,  like 
an  acre  of  ground,  or  a  house-lot,  or  a  dollar  whether  gold  or 
silver.  One  does  not  sign  a  creed  precisely  as  he  signs  a  note. 
There  is  a  mischievous  fallaciousness  in  the  way  in  which 
men  use  such  comparisons,  and  then  proceed  to  impeach  their 
brethren's  honesty,  simply  because  they  do  not  know  what 
they  themselves  are  talking  about. 


62 

This  principle  of  "  charitable  construction  "  by  which  di- 
versities of  form  in  holding  a  doctrine  are  overlooked,  has 
been  employed  in  the  history  of  the  Seminary  and  under  the 
eyes  of  its  founders,  so  as  to  cover  not  merely  a  diversity  as 
to  the  form  but  as  to  the  substance  of  subsidiary  or  unessen- 
tial doctrine.  One  perfectly  plain  tenet  of  the  Creed,  if  an 
individual  and  important  phrase  is  to  be  pressed,  has  never 
been  required.  At  one  time  I  presume  most  of  those  who 
subscribed,  Professors  and  Visitors  alike,  did  not  accept  it  in 
its  proper  meaning  as  it  stands  in  the  Creed.  I  refer  to  the 
doctrine  of  the  Eternal  Sonship. 

The  Creed  says:  "  [I  believe]  that  the  only  Redeemer  of 
the  elect  is  the  eternal  Son  of  God,  who  for  this  purpose  be- 
came man,  and  continues  to  be  God  and  man  in  two  distinct 
natures  and  one  person  forever."  Every  Professor,  every 
Visitor,  since  the  Seminary  was  founded,  has  signed  this 
statement.  One  of  the  earliest  signatures  is  that  of  Moses 
Stuart.  In  his  Letters  to  Rev.  William  E.  Channing  ("  1819, 
republished  in  five  successive  editions  ")  Prof.  Stuart  repudi- 
ated, as  is  well  known,  the  Nicene  and  historical  church  doc- 
trine of  Eternal  Generation,  or  that  the  Son  was  always  Son. 
He  admitted  an  eternal  distinction  in  the  divine  nature,  that 
this  distinction  became  incarnate  and  was  called  Son  as  in- 
carnate, but  denied  that  the  name  Son  properly  designates 
this  distinction  considered  as  eternal.  In  a  word,  the  words 
Eternal  Son  did  not  mean  to  him  what  they  had  meant  in  the 
church,  what  they  meant  in  the  Catechism,  whose  words  are 
here  appropriated,  what  they  meant  in  the  traditional  theol- 
ogy of  New-England,  what  they  meant  to  Dr.  Samuel  Hop- 
kins and  to  Dr.  Samuel  Spring,  both  of  whom  are  explicit 
even  to  the  rejection  and  condemnation  of  any  denial  of  this 
established  traditional  meaning.  I  know  of  no  evidence  that 
at  the  time  the  Creed  was  written  they  had  gained  any  new 
accepted  interpretation.  They  require  in  the  Creed  therefore 
their  ordinary  sense. 

Professor  Stuart  rejected  this  tenet,  and  apparently  without 
any  hesitation  or  misgiving.  He  defined  his  position  in  re- 
spect to  the  creed  of  Nicea  by  saying  that  "the  thing  aimed 


63 

at  was  in  substance  to  assert  the  idea  of  a  distinction  in  the 
Godhead,"  which  is  perfectly  true  as  the  history  shows.  He 
said  later  that  the  fathers  were  "  in  substance  right,  their 
pneumatic  philosophy  plainly  inadmissible."  l  He  must  have 
explained  to  himself  his  disagreement  with  the  language 
of  the  Catechism  in  the  Seminary  Creed  on  the  same  princi- 
ple. He  held  what  the  phrase  "  Eternal  Son,"  in  its  tradi- 
tional sense,  stood  for,  viz.,  the  doctrine  of  the  Deity  of 
Christ.  But  the  traditional  form  of  this  belief,  as  embodied 
in  this  phrase,  he  denied.  That  is,  he  held  to  the  substance 
of  the  doctrine,  as  this  is  an  integral  and  essential  part  of  the 
Creed,  but  he  rejected  a  subsidiary,  and  as  he  regarded  it, 
unessential  and  unbiblical  form  of  that  doctrine  in  its  sub- 
stance, though  this  is  a  part  of  the  substance  of  the  Creed. 

This  was  done  by  him  while  he  was  in  most  intimate  rela- 
tions with  the  early  Founders  of  the  Seminary,  particularly 
with  the  Associate  Founder  William  Bartlet,  who  continued  to 
pay  bills  for  German  books,  which  Professor  Stuart  imported 
almost  by  the  cart-load,  and  who  never  was  disturbed,  I  pre- 
sume, because  small  men  and  narrow  men  cried  out  against  his 
Professor's  neology.  Professor  Stuart  was  called  to  account 
by  Dr.  Miller  of  Princeton,  and  in  reply  published  a  heterodox 
book  and  assiduously  followed  up  all  this  "heterodoxy"  by 
excursus  after  excursus  in  his  commentaries,  and  by  articles 
in  the  Biblical  Repository  and  the  Bibliotheca  Sacra. 

I  have  had  myself  a  little  experience  in  relation  to  this 
doctrine.  I  have  been  led  to  accept  the  ordinary  church 
doctrine,  and  that  of  the  Catechism  and  the  Creed.  I  do 
not  wish  to 

"Compound  for  sins  [I  am]  inclined  to 
By  damning  those  [I  have]  no  mind  to ;  " 

but  I  am  persuaded  that  Professor  Stuart  was  wrong  in  the 
result  of  his  exegesis  on  this  point  and  in  his  interpreta- 
tion of  the  history  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Eternal  Sonship. 
I  agree  with  the  early  Hopkinsians  as  well  as  with  Charles 
Kingsley  and  Frederick  D.  Maurice  in  thinking  this  doctrine 
1  Bibliotheca  Sacra,  vii.  p.  314. 


64 

an  important  one,  and  its  rejection  an  error  of  some  conse- 
quence. Coming  early  in  my  teaching  at  Andover  to  this 
conclusion,  I  have  maintained  the  Creed  on  this  point  as  I 
promised  according  to  the  best  light  God  has  given  me. 
I  soon  learned,  by  the  fire  of  questions  poured  in  upon  me 
that  ray  pupils  had  been  taught  otherwise  in  another  lecture 
room.  I  made  no  allusions  to  such  teaching,  but  simply 
kept  on  with  my  own.  It  never  occurred  to  me  that  some- 
body should  be  tried  for  "heterodoxy."  If  I  had  been  a 
lawyer,  certainly  if  I  could  have  been  a  judge,  I  should  have 
said  that  the  article  in  the  Creed  was  doubtless  subscribed 
by  my  pupils'  teacher  in  Christian  theology,  who  had  sub- 
scribed to  the  phrase  "  Eternal  Son  "  in  the  Catechism  as 
well  as  in  the  Creed,  on  the  principle  of  "  charitable  con- 
struction," but  being  not  a  lawyer  nor  judge,  but  a  Professor 
of  Ecclesiastical  History,  I  thought  and  still  think  that  he 
subscribed  on  the  principle  which  he  now  so  vehemently 
repudiates,  and  which  is  expressed  in  the  venerable  New 
England  formula,  "  for  substance  of  doctrine." 

This  will  I  think  make  clear  the  full  extent  of  my  mean- 
ing. I  reject  all  vague  and  loose  applications  of  the  phrase 
"  for  substance,"  but  it  has,  I  hold,  its  legitimate  place  in 
any  requirement  of  subscription  to  the  Seminary  Creed 
which  has  even  a  decent  regard  to  past  usage,  whether  at 
Andover  or  in  the  church  at  large,  or  to  the  decisions  of  legal 
tribunals,  or  to  the  true  intentions  of  such  men  as  founded 
the  Seminary  whether  Hopkinsians  or  Old  Calvinists. 

I  know  of  but  one  important  objection  to  this  claim.  It  is 
said  that  the  purpose  of  the  Hopkinsians,  who  put  the 
Creed  into  their  Statutes,  and  came  into  the  union  on  its 
acceptance  by  the  Andover  Founders,  was  to  compel  the 
Moderate  Calvinists  to  greater  strictness  of  belief  at  Andover 
than  could  be  secured  by  a  general  consent  to  the  Catechism  ; 
that  in  their  opinion  a  general  subscription  or  assent  had  let 
into  the  ministry  a  great  many  men  who  were  doctrinally 
unsound,  and  that  they  intended  to  bar  out  such  looseness. 
If  now  their  own  Creed  is  to  be  subscribed  for  substance,  as 
the   Catechism   had   been    taken,   the   desired   protection    is 


65 

thrown  away,  and  the  assumed  purpose  of  the  Founders  is 
frustrated. 

I  think  this  is  a  fair  criticism  upon  such  interpretations 
and  uses  of  the  formula,  "  for  substance  of  doctrine,"  as  I 
have  rejected  and  condemned. 

But  it  goes  no  further.     It  overlooks  important  facts. 

1.  The  fact  that  the  Creed  is  a  union  Creed.  What  was 
its  origin  and  first  form  is  uncertain.  One  account  repre- 
sents that  it  was  constructed  for  the  Newbury  Seminary, 
which  was  not  intended  to  be  a  mere  Hopkinsian  affair,  but 
broader.  Another  alleges  that  it  was  first  presented  to 
Dr.  Spring  by  Dr.  Pearson  who  represented  the  Andover 
Founders.  All  accounts  agree  that  it  was  not  intended  for 
a  mere  party,  and  that  it  was  finally  accepted  as  a  basis  of 
union.  It  has  from  early  times  been  called  a  "  compromise  " 
Creed.  It  certainly  was  designed  to  be  comprehensive,  and 
this  is  a  more  honorable  description  of  it. 

2.  The  fact  that  the  Creed  contains  traditional  phraseology 
which  was  accepted  in  its  traditional  meaning  by  some  at 
least  of  those  who  entered  into  the  union. 

3.  The  fact  that  these  men  approved  of  this  language 
being  taken  by  other  men  with  a  new  meaning,  and  that 
those  who  thus  took  it  consented  that  such  language  should 
remain  in  the  Creed. 

One  of  these  historical  phrases  is  contained  in  the  article  : 
"  [I  believe]  that  Adam,  the  federal  head  and  representative 
of  the  human  race  was  placed  in  a  state  of  probation  and 
that  in  consequence  of  his  disobedience  all  his  descendants 
were  constituted  sinners."  The  phrase  "federal  head  and 
representative  "  is  the  symbol  of  a  distinct  type  of  theology. 
In  New  England  this  had  been,  until  the  days  of  Jonathan 
Edwards,  and  particularly  of  Samuel  Hopkins,  the  established 
system.  It  is  the  teaching  of  the  Catechisms  and  the  Con- 
fession. It  was  undergoing  changes,  but  its  essential  idea 
that  man's  depravity  comes  to  him  not  simply  as  an  act  of 
sovereignty  but  of  law  and  justice  was  not  yet  abandoned. 
Emmons  found  it  necessary  to  preach  against  it  elaborately. 
Nor  was  it  excluded  from  the  Creed  by  the  phrases  "in  con- 


66 

sequence  of  "  and  "  were  constituted  sinners."  The  latter  is  as 
old  as  the  Vulgate.1  It  is  Calvin's 2  language,  and  Turretin's.3 
Professor  Park  comments  on  it  as  though  it  were  distinctive 
of  Emmons.  He  says  :  "  In  one  and  the  same  discourse  the 
doctor  [Emmons]  calls  Adam  '  a  federal  head  of  the  race ' 
and  criticises  the  Assembly's  Catechism  for  teaching  that 
Adam  entered  into  a  literal  covenant  with  his  Maker.  So  in 
one  and  the  same  sentence  the  Creed  excludes  all  that  the 
Catechism  says  in  regard  to  the  covenant  of  works,  quotes  the 
very  language  of  Emmons,  that  all  Adam's  '  descendants  were 
constituted  sinners,"1  and  also  designates  Adam  as  'the  federal 
head  and  representative  of  the  race  '.  One  sermon  of  Emmons 
is  compressed  into  one  article  of  the  Creed."  Unfortunately 
for  this  representation  the  sermon  referred  to  was  not  preached 
until  after  the  Creed  was  adopted,  and  the  Seminary  estab- 
lished ;  nor,  so  far  as  I  can  ascertain,  was  it  published  until 
1860  in  the  edition  of  Emmons's  works  to  which  Dr.  Park 
contributed  a  memoir.  It  is  also  well  understood  that  Dr. 
Emmons  was  not  entirely  satisfied  with  the  Creed.  And, 
apart  from  all  this,  every  old  Calvinist  could  use  the  phrase 
"were  constituted"  and  even  "in  consequence  of,"  as  well 
as  the  Hopkinsians.  So  that  the  article  might  with  less 
forcing  of  its  terms  be  harmonized  with  the  Old  Theology 
than  with  the  New.  Yet,  on  the  other  hand,  it  does  not 
speak  of  the  covenant  of  works,  nor  impute  Adam's  sin  as 
guilt  to  his  posterity,  and  the  general  shaping  of  the  lan- 
guage in  the  context  is  all  friendly  to  the  new  conceptions 
of  moral  agency  which  the  Hopkinsians  were  zealously 
propagating.  They  too  could  live  under  this  article  in  the 
Creed  provided  they  could  be  allowed  to  accept  the  federal 
headship  of  Adam  with  a  certain  degree  of  latitude,  in  other 
words  "  for  substance  of  doctrine."  Professor  Park  really  ad- 
mits this  to  be  the  true  explanation.  For  he  adds  to  the  words 

1  "Peccatores  constitute  sunt  multi."     Vulgate  transl.  of  Rom.  v.  19. 

2  "  Quemadmodum  enim  per  inobedientiam  unius  hominis  peccatores  con- 
stituti  sunt  multi :  sic  et  per  obedientiam  unius  justi  constituentur  multi." 
Com.  on  Horn.  v.  19. 

'■'■  "  Eadem  quippe  ratione  constituimur  peccatores  in  Adamoqua  justi  con- 
stituimur  in  Christo."  Inst.  Tlieol.  Elenct.,  Pars  Prima,  Locus  Nonus  De 
Peccato.    Q.  IX.  §  xvi.  ed.  Lugd.  Batav.  1696,  Vol.  I.  p.  681. 


67 

I  have  just  quoted  the  statement,  "The  disclaimer  of  a  word 
in  a  literal  sense  need  not  be  a  disclaimer  of  it  in  a  figurative 
sense,"  and  earlier  on  the  same  page,  he  says :  "  Those  Hop- 
kinsians,  however,  did  not  believe  in  any  literal  covenant  of 
works.  They  could  use  the  term  figuratively,  but  would  not 
insert  the  language  of  the  Catechism  into  their  Creed." 
Their  Creed  !  It  was  not  theirs  alone.  It  was  the  Creed  of 
the  Federalists  also,  who  could  use  the  terms  of  this  the- 
ology as  the  Hopkinsians  could  not.  So  that  we  are  shut 
up  to  this  conclusion.  The  Federalists  put  into,  or  found  in, 
the  Creed  their  favorite  phrase  "  federal  head  and  repre- 
sentative "  ;  the  Hopkinsians  at  least  consented  to  its  remain- 
ing there  ;  and  each  party  understood  not  only  that  it  might 
bear  a  different  meaning  to  the  other,  but  that  even  if  it  did 
so,  and  the  Creed  were  thus  taken,  it  was  satisfactorily  taken, 
for  it  was  accepted  for  substance  of  doctrine.  Some  criticism 
has  been  expended  upon  the  Founders  for  their  consenting 
to  an  ambiguous  article.  If  the  principle  of  the  procedure 
were  that  each  party  should  find  his  own  doctrine  by  catch- 
ing at  one  clause  and  ignoring  another,  by  interpreting  federal 
headship  "  figuratively  "  and  constituted  "  literally,"  or  vice 
versa,  I  think  the  procedure  could  not  be  defended.  I  sup- 
pose it  to  have  been  a  larger,  a  firmly  established  and  well 
understood  principle  on  which  they  acted,  namely,  that  what- 
ever special  theories  these  technical  formulas  suggested,  and 
whatever  preferences  one  person  or  another  might  entertain 
as  respects  these  subsidiary  forms  of  doctrine,  the  great  fact 
was  confessed  of  human  depravity,  so  that  men  are  acknowl- 
edged to  be  "  morally  incapable  "  of  self-recovery,  and  to  be 
in  need  of  a  Redeemer,  and  of  regeneration  by  the  Holy 
Spirit.  Admit  that  the  Article  I  have  been  considering  can 
be  accepted  "for  substance  of  doctrine,"  as  I  believe  it  has 
been  subscribed  from  the  first,  and  you  simply  apply  to  the 
Creed  a  well-known  principle.  Deny  that  this  is  legitimate, 
and  you  make  an  honest  subscription  impossible  for  any  one 
but  a  Federal  Calvinist,  and  discredit  the  entire  history  of 
the  Seminary.  It  is  discovered  that  Dr.  Emmons  once  or 
twice,  when  he  could  not  be  misunderstood,  used  the  older 


68 

phraseology  figuratively.  And  this  is  brought  forward  as  a 
reason  for  giving  the  phrase  the  same  interpretation  in  a  care- 
fully drawn  Creed.  In  other  words,  because  a  preacher,  in 
order  to  avoid  a  seemingly  entire  divorce  of  his  thought  from 
inherited  principles,  uses  a  familiar  term  in  a  way  which  sug- 
gests a  connection  between  his  own  clearly  explained  and 
new  views  and  the  older  theology,  we  have  a  right  to  under- 
stand such  a  phrase  in  a  Creed  to  be  figurative,  and  so  are 
enabled  to  sign  it  literally,  and  avoid  the  offense  of  taking  it 
substantially,  as  it  has  been  taken  from  the  time  it  was  first 
written.  I  claim  the  right  to  abide  by  the  accepted  usage  and 
the  long  established  principle,  and  this  not  merely  with  refer- 
ence to  this  article  but  wherever  a  similar  exigency  arises, 
always  remembering  the  restrictions  I  have  acknowledged. 

There  is  one  other  general  principle  in  the  acceptance  of 
theological  creeds  which  was  emphasized  by  Dr.  Henry  B. 
Smith,  and  which  is  of  importance  now.  I  remark  therefore 
fourthly, 

4.     I  accept  the  Seminary  Creed  in  its  historical  se7ise. 

I  do  not  mean  by  this  that  opinions  which  it  does  not  ex- 
press may  be  read  into  it  because  they  were  entertained  at  the 
time  it  was  written,  and  perhaps  by  the  men  who  composed 
it ;  nor  that  opinions  which  they  put  into  it  may  be  taken  out 
of  it  because,  perchance,  if  they  were  living  now,  they  would 
appoint  a  different  creed. 

The  Associate  Founders  reserved  to  themselves  the  right 
for  seven  years  to  amend  the  Creed.  The}^  prohibited  sub- 
sequent alterations.  This  does  not  define  the  nature  of  sub- 
scription, as  some  have  affirmed;  but  it  doubtless  does  exclude, 
indirectly  or  by  necessary  inference,  any  mutilation  of  the 
Creed  in  its  administration,  either  by  adding  to  it  a  tenet 
which  it  does  not  authorize,  or  subtracting  from  it  one  that 
it  requires.    To  this  extent  it  supplies  a  rule  for  subscription. 

I  agree  to  this  rule,  and  do  not  assert  anything  contrary  to 
it  when  I  affirm  the  historical  sense  of  the  Creed.  I  intend 
by  this  formula  to  emphasize  several  things. 

(1)  The  language  of  the  Creed  must  be  interpreted  histor- 
ically.    Its  traditional  terms,  not  otherwise  explained,  must 


69 

have  their  traditional  meaning.  .  Whatever  of  strictness, 
whatever  of  liberality,  belongs  to  them  when  thus  under- 
stood, enures  to  the  subscriber  now  as  at  the  first. 

Such  words  and  phrases  are  some  already  noticed :  "only 
perfect  rule  of  faith  and  practice,"  "  three  Persons,"  "  same 
in  substance,"  "  equal  in  power  and  glory,"  "  Adam,  the  fed- 
eral head  and  representative,"  and  so  on. 

Many  Trinitarians  hold  to  a  personal  or  hypostatic  subor- 
dination of  the  Son  to  the  Father.  So  long  as  this  is  not  under- 
stood to  contradict  what  is  affirmed  by  the  phrase  "  same  in 
substance,"  there  is  nothing  in  the  Creed  to  exclude  such  a 
mode  of  belief.  For  the  phrase  "  equality  in  power  and 
glory  "  historically  interpreted  does  not  exclude  either  official 
•or  personal  subordination,  but  only  essential.  One  who 
•denies  the  true  Divinity  of  the  Son  could  not  sign  the  Creed 
honestly,  but  any  believer  in  this  doctrine,  though  a  subordi- 
nationist,  might  accept  it.  We  have  here,  as  very  often  in 
the  Creed,  phrases  which  are  not  contracted  but  comprehen- 
sive, leaving  room  for  many  minor  modifications  of  belief. 

So  the  term  "federal  head,"  which  also  is  left  undefined, 
has  a  historical  latitude  of  meaning.  It  came  into  vogue  in 
opposition  to  an  extreme  type  of  Calvinism.  It  represented 
a  new  departure.  It  characterized  a  movement  away  from 
scholastic  Calvinism  in  the  direction  of  a  Biblical  Calvinism. 
It  was  a  protest  against  an  over-wrought  doctrine  of  sov- 
ereignty, in  the  interest  of  human  freedom.  A  man  is  not 
simply  a  creature,  but  a  person,  with  whom  God  condescends 
to  make  a  covenant.  A  distinguished  theologian,  to  whom 
I  have  before  referred,  contends  that  the  Creed  must  be  taken 
in  all  its  details,  and  cannot  be  taken  as  other  Creeds  are 
taken,  but  when  he  speaks  of  its  federal  terms  he  says,  in 
language  already  partly  quoted,1  that  the  Founders  "  believed 
wisely  in  the  '  covenant  of  redemption  '  and  in  the  '  covenant 
of  grace,'  as  these  terms  were  understood  by  the  divines 
whom  they  deemed  most  authoritative.  Those  Hopkinsians, 
however,  did-  not  believe  in  any  literal  covenant  of  works. 
They  would   use   the   term  figuratively  .  .  .  '      Thus   by  a 

1  The  Associate  Creed  of  And.  Theol.  Sem.,  pp.  44,  45. 


70 

"wise'"  interpretation  and  a  "figurative"'  interpretation,  all 
the  "  details"  of  the  Creed  can  be  accepted  literally! 

But  there  is  no  need  of  such  latitudinarian  canons. 

Taken  historically  all  these  terms  are  way-marks  of  pro- 
gress along  the  line  of  modern  theology,  as  it  has  more  and 
more  realized  the  true  character  of  God  as  revealed  in  Christ, 
his  overstepping  the  bounds  of  instituted  law  in  the  promises 
of  his  grace,  his  dealing  with  men  as  persons  endowed  by 
Him  with  inalienable  rights.  Professor  Park  has  been  wont 
to  say  that  the  covenant  of  works  was  made  in  Holland.  It 
was — and  it  has  in  it  the  principle  of  liberty  for  which  the 
Netherlander  fought  by  land  and  sea.  I  would  not  miss  from 
the  Creed  Bullinger's  "covenant  of  grace"  or  Cocceius's 
"  covenant  of  works  "  in  the  form  of  Adam's  federal  headship. 
They  are  all  there,  and  the  signer  of  the  Creed  has  his  rights 
under  them  and  to  them.  They  are  still  a  standing  protest 
against  an  extreme  type  of  Calvinism  which  after  having 
been  modified  by  Federalism  suddenly  shot  up  like  Jonah's 
gourd  in  Emmonsism.  The  Creed,  as  Professor  Park  wisely 
but  not  figuratively  claims,  is  "  protective,"  if  historically 
taken,  and  as  a  whole. 

(2)  Whenever  traditional  language  is  departed  from  and 
new  phraseology  introduced  we  are  brought  into  special 
contact  with  the  intention  of  the  Founders. 

In  the  legal  interpretation  of  a  document  which  is  com- 
posed of  printed  matter  and  written  statements,  the  latter 
have  the  preference  in  interpreting  the  author's  purpose.  It 
more  especially  expresses  his  mind  and  will. 

This  is  an  important  principle  in  its  application  to  the 
Seminary  Creed. 

There  are  three  parts  of  the  Creed  in  which  these  novelties 
of  doctrine  appear  —  the  part  which  relates  to  original  sin, 
the  one  which  treats  of  redemption,  and  the  part  which 
treats  of  God's  universal  moral  government ;  and  the  new 
matter  introduced  consists  of  either  an  enlargement  or  cor- 
rection of  the  traditional  theology  in  respect  to  two  points, 
God's  purpose  of  redemption,  and  the  ethical  principles  by 
which  He  is  governed  in  dealing  with  men  ;  these  two  aspects 


71 

of  truth  being  indeed  but  one  principle  by  which  Theology 
always  makes  what  progress  it  achieves,  namely,  a  more 
thoroughly  ethical  or  Christian  apprehension  of  God. 

The  truth  of  what  I  have  been  saying  will  appear  to  any 
one  who  examines  intelligently  a  copy  of  the  Creed,  like  the 
one  I  have  prepared  which  shows  by  Italics  those  portions 
which  are  copied  from  the  Shorter  Catechism,  by  Roman 
type  and  black  ink  where  the  thoughts  of  the  Westminster 
Standards  are  reproduced,  and  by  red  ink  what  is  new. 

"  Every  Professor  on  this  foundation  shall  be  a  Master  of 
Arts  of  the  Protestant  Reformed  Religion,  an  ordained  Min- 
ister of  the  Congregational  or  Presbyterian  denomination, 
and  shall  sustain  the  character  of  a  discreet,  honest,  learned, 
and  devout  Christian,  an  orthodox  and  consistent  Calvinist ; 
and,  after  a  careful  examination  by  the  Visitors  with  reference 
to  his  religious  principles,  he  shall,  on  the  day  of  his  inaugu- 
ration, publicly  make  and  subscribe  a  solemn  declaration  of 
his  faith  in  Divine  Revelation,  and  in  the  fundamental  and 
distinguishing  doctrines  of  the  Gospel  as  expressed  in  the 
following  Creed,  which  is  supported  by  the  infallible  Revela- 
tion which  God  constantly  makes  of  Himself  in  his  works  of 
creation,  providence,  and  redemption,  namely :  — 

"  I  believe  that  there  is  one,  and  but  one,  .  .  .  living  and 
true  God ;  that  the  word  of  God,  .  .  .  contained  in  the 
Scriptures  of  the  Old  and  Neiv  Testament,1  is  the  only  perfect 
rule  of  faith  and  practice  ;  that  agreeably  to  those  Scriptures 
God  is  a  Spirit,  infinite,  eternal,  and  unchangeable  in  his  being, 
wisdom,  power,  holiness,  justice,  goodness,  and  truth;  that  in 
the  Godhead  .  .  .  are  three  Perso7is,  the  Father,  the  Son, 
and  the  Holy  Ghost ;  and  that  these  Three  are  One  God,  the 
same  in  substance,  equal  in  poiver  and  glory ;  that  God  cre- 
ated man  .  .  .  after  his  own  image,  in  knowledge,  righteousness, 
and  holiness ;  that  the  glory  of  God  is  mans  chief  end,  the 
enjoyment  of  God  his  supreme  happiness ;  that  this  enjoy- 
ment is  derived  solely  from  conformity  of  heart  to  the  moral 
character  and  will  of  God ;  that  Adam,  the  federal  head  and 

1  S.  C,  Testaments. 


72 

representative  of  the  human  race,  was  placed  in  a  state  of 
probation,  and  that  in  consequence  of  his  disobedience  all 
his  descendants  were  constituted  sinners ;  that  by  nature 
every  man  is  personally  depraved,  destitute  of  holiness, 
unlike  and  opposed  to  God ;  and  that  previously  to  the 
renewing  agency  of  the  Divine  Spirit  all  his  moral  actions 
are  adverse  to  the  character  and  glory  of  God  ;  that  being 
morally  incapable  of  recovering  the  image  of '  his  Creator, 
which  was  lost  in  Adam,  every  man  is  justly  exposed  to 
eternal  damnation  ;  so  that,  except  a  man  be  born  again  he 
cannot  see  the  kingdom  of  God ;  that  God,  .  .  .  of  his  mere 
good  pleasure,  from  all  eternity,  elected  so?ne  to  everlasting 
life,  and  that  he  entered,  into  a  covenant  of  grace  to  deliver 
them  out  of  this  state  of  sin  and  misery  .  .  .  by  a  Redeemer ; 
that  the  only  Redeemer  of  the  elect  is  the  eternal  S071  of  God, 
who  for  this  purpose  became  man,  and  .  .  .  continues  to  be 
God  and  man  in  two  distinct  natures  and  one  person  forever  ; 
that  Christ  as  our  Redeemer  executeth  the  office  l  of  a  Prophet, 
.  .  .  Priest,  and  .  .  .  King;  that  agreeably  to  the  covenant 
of  redemption  the  Son  of  God,  and  he  alone,  by  his  suffering 
and  death,  has  made  atonement  for  the  sins  of  all  men  ;  that 
repentance,  faith,  and  holiness  are  the  personal  requisites  in 
the  Gospel  scheme  of  salvation  ;  that  the  righteousness  of 
Christ  is  the  only  ground  of  a  sinner's  justification  ;  that  this 
righteousness  is  received  through  faith,  and  that  this  faith  is 
the  gift  of  God ;  so  that  our  salvation  is  wholly  of  grace  ; 
that  no  means  whatever  can  change  the  heart  of  a  sinner 
and  make  it  holy ;  that  regeneration  and  sanctification  are 
effects  of  the  creating  and  renewing  agency  of  the  Holy 
Spirit,  and  that  supreme  love  to  God  constitutes  the  essential 
difference  between  saints  and  sinners  :  that,  by  convincing  us 
of  our  sin  and  misery,  enlightening  our  minds,  .  .  .  working 
faith  in  us,  and  renewing  our  wills,2  the  Holy  Spirit  makes  us 
partakers  of  the  benefits  of  redemption,  and  that  the  .  .  . 
ordinary  means  by  which  these  benefits  are  communicated  to 
us  are  the  Word,  sacraments,  and  prayer;  that  repentance 
unto  life,  faith  to  feed  upon  Christ,  love  to   God,  and  new 

i  S.  C,  offices.  2  S.  C'.,  will. 


73 

obedience  are  the  appropriate  qualifications  for  the  Lord's 
Supper,  and  that  a  Christian  Church  ought  to  admit  no 
person  to  its  holy  communion  before  he  exhibit  credible 
evidence  of  his  godly  sincerity ;  that  perseverance  in  holi- 
ness is  the  only  method  of  making  our  calling  and  election 
sure,  and  that  the  final  perseverance  of  saints,  though  it  is 
the  effect  of  the  special  operation  of  God  on  their  hearts, 
yet  necessarily  implies  their  own  watchful  diligence ;  that 
they  who  are  effectually  called  do  in  this  life  partake  of  justifi- 
cation, adoption,  and  sanctification  and  the  several  benefits  which 
.  .  .  do  either  accompany  or  flow  from  them ;  that  the  souls 
of  believers  are  at  their  death  made  perfect  in  holiness,  and 
do  immediately  pass  into  glory;  that  their  bodies,  being  still 
united  to  Christ,  will  at  the  resurrection  be  .  .  .  raised  up  to 
glory,  and  that  the  saints  will  be  made  perfectly  blessed  in  the 
full  enjoyment  of  God  to  all  eternity;  but  that  the  wicked 
will  awake  to  shame  and  everlasting  contempt,  and  with 
devils  be  plunged  into  the  lake  that  burnetii  with  fire  and 
brimstone  for  ever  and  ever.  I  moreover  believe  that  God, 
according  to  the  counsel  of  his  own  will  and  for  his  own  glory, 
hath  foreordained  whatsoever  comes  to  pass,  and  that  all  beings, 
actions,  and  events,  both  in  the  natural  and  moral  world,  are 
under  his  providential  direction  ;  that  God's  decrees  perfectly 
consist  with  human  liberty,  God's  universal  agency  with  the 
agency  of  man,  and  man's  dependence  with  his  accountabil- 
ity ;  that  man  has  understanding  and  corporeal  strength  to 
do  all  that  God  requires  of  him,  so  that  nothing  but  the 
sinner's  aversion  to  holiness  prevents  his  salvation ;  that  it  is 
the  prerogative  of  God  to  bring  good  out  of  evil,  and  that  he 
will  cause  the  wrath  and  rage  of  wicked  men  and  devils  to 
praise  him ;  and  that  all  the  evil  which  has  existed,  and  will 
forever  exist,  in  the  moral  system,  will  eventually  be  made 
to  promote  a  most  important  purpose  under  the  wise  and 
perfect  administration  of  that  Almighty  Being  who  will  cause 
all  things  to  work  for  his  own  glory,  and  thus  fulfil  all  his 
pleasure.  And,  furthermore,  I  do  solemnly  promise  that  I 
will  open  and  explain  the  Scriptures  to  my  Pupils  with 
integrity  and  faithfulness  ;  that  I  will  maintain  and  inculcate 


74 

the  Christian  faith  as  expressed  in  the  Creed  by  me  now- 
repeated,  together  with  all  the  other  doctrines  and  duties  of 
our  holy  Religion,  so  far  as  may  appertain  to  my  office, 
according  to  the  best  light  God  shall  give  me,  and  in  opposi- 
tion not  only  to  atheists  and  infidels,  but  to  Jews,  Papists, 
Mahometans,  Arians,  Pelagians,  Antinomians,  Arminians, 
Socinians,  Sabellians,  Unitarians,  and  Universalists,  and  to 
all  other  heresies  and  errors,  ancient  or  modern,  which  may 
be  opposed  to  the  Gospel  of  Christ  or  hazardous  to  the  souls 
of  men ;  that  b}T  my  instruction,  counsel,  and  example  I 
will  endeavor  to  promote  true  Piety  and  Godliness;  that 
I  will  consult  the  good  of  this  Institution  and  the  peace  of 
the  Churches  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ  on  all  occasions ;  and 
that  I  will  religiously  conform  to  the  Constitution  and  Laws 
of  this  Seminary,  and  to  the  Statutes  of  this  Foundation." 

4  It  follows  from  such  a  study  of  the  Creed  as  I  have  indi- 
cated and  from  the  application  of  the  principle  I  have  stated, 
that  where  contradiction  would  otherwise  exist  the  con- 
trolling principle  must  be  found  in  the  interjected  or  new 
statement.  The  old  cannot  fetter  the  new ;  on  the  contrary 
the  new  may  liberate  the  old. 

Take  the  article  about  "-federal  head."  If  the  Creed 
must  be  taken  in  its  every  detail,  it  asserts,  as  we  have  seen 
not  figuratively  but  plainly  and  literally,  the  doctrine  of  the 
covenant  of  works.  You  cannot  take  this  theory  and  at 
the  same  time  accept  one  which  contradicts  it.  But  if  any 
one  should  arise  and  take  up  the  contention  once  so  vigorously 
pressed  against  an  Abbot  Professor  by  Dr.  Dana  and  Parsons 
Cooke  and  others,  and  insist  that  the  Catechism  and  the 
Creed  required  that  Professor  to  accept  federal  headship 
not  in  a  figurative  but  in  a  literal  sense,  and  that  for  nearly 
half  a  century  he  was  guilty  of  a  stupendous  breach  of 
trust  and  of  violating  his  repeated  solemn  promises,  a  his- 
torical interpretation  of  the  Creed  will  amply  protect  his 
good  name.  For  if  there  is,  as  is  claimed,  a  contradiction 
of  theories  in  the  Creed,  the  new  formula  has  a  superior 
power  to  the  old,  and  so  the  Professor  was  quite  in  accord 


75 

with  the  Creed  in  his  lifelong  rejection  of  federal  head- 
ship and  advocacy  of  the  theory  recognized  if  not  with 
entire  distinctness  in  the  other  portion  of  the  article,  at 
least  in  this  when  interpreted  in  the  light  of  the  promi- 
nence elsewhere  given  to  the  principle  of  personal  moral 
agency. 

Or  take  again  the  statement  about  a  universal  atonement. 
You  cannot  evidently  harmonize  universal  atonement  and 
limited  atonement.  Neither  can  you  find  in  the  Creed  pre- 
cisely the  later  theory  of  general  atonement  and  particular 
redemption.  The  general  atonement  of  the  Creed  is  some- 
thing wrought  out  under  the  "  Covenant  of  Redemption." 
At  the  same  time  you  cannot  deny  that  under  the  phraseol- 
ogy of  redemption  is  introduced  a  universal  atonement ;  and 
this"  is  not  only  unmistakably  stated,  but  is  the  new  element, 
and  therefore  par  excellence  to  be  insisted  upon.  All  the  pre- 
vious language,  therefore,  which  embodies  the  older  theory  of 
limited  atonement  must  be  qualified  by  this  ruling  article  — 
in  other  words  the  whole  doctrine  of  the  covenant  of  grace, 
with  particular  election  and  redemption  must  be  subsumed 
under  the  doctrine  of  universal  redemption,  and  this  again, 
so  far  as  the  covenant  of  redemption  goes,  must  be  adjusted 
to  personal  responsibility  and  the  doctrine  of  retribution  for 
the  wicked  at  the  day  of  final  judgment. 

Any  one  who  takes  the  Creed  in  this  way  comes  as  near 
as  it  is  possible  to  come  to  the  mind  of  those  who  framed  it. 
And  it  is  no  small  honor  to  these  men  that  at  the  early  date 
when  the  Creed  was  written  they  were  willing  thus  to  mod- 
ify the  traditional  Calvinism  in  the  interest  of  a  new  move- 
ment of  thought  and  to  put  two  essential  principles  of  the 
New  Divinity — Universal  Atonement  and  Personal  Agency 
—  into  the  Creed,  and  require  all  who  taught  in  the  Seminary 
to  be  faithful  to  them. 

(3).  There  is  room  for  a  progressive  interpretation  and 
systemization  of  the  truths  of  the  Creed. 

Dr.  Park  has  enunciated  the  first  and  most  important  part 
of  this  proposition.  He  says,  speaking  of  the  Hopkinsian 
founders,  "  They  were  in  favor  of  progress  in  the  interpre- 


76 

tation  of  the  Creed,  provided  that  the  progress  were  toward 
the  Hopkinsian  interpretation  of  it."  * 

The  Hopkinsian  elements  in  the  Creed  have  been  already 
briefly  characterized.  They  constitute  the  bulk  of  the  addi- 
tions to  the  Westminster  statements.  They  include  the 
principles  of  a  universal  atonement  and  personal  agency. 

But  who  will  presume  to  say  that  these  great  principles 
had  accomplished  all  their  service  for  theology  when  they 
were  put  into  the  Creed,  or  at  the  close  of  any  later  period 
in  the  history  of  the  Seminary?  Who  will  doubt  that  the 
influence  they  already  have  exerted  on  the  interpretation  of 
other  doctrines  mentioned  in  the  Creed  must  go  on? 

Historical  interpretation  gives  us  first  the  Creed  in  its 
meaning  as  understood  by  its  framers :  it  also  gives  us  the 
Creed  as  it  proves  to  be  a  living  fountain  for  others  who  re- 
ceive it.  No  Creed  is  ever  estimated  aright  or  interpreted 
aright,  until  the  principles  in  it  which  were  vital  to  the 
authors  of  it  are  understood  in  their  vitality,  and  vitality 
means  alwa}rs  growth. 

The  other  portion  of  my  remark  is  no  less  true  and  im- 
portant. The  Creed  admits  of  a  progressive  systematization 
of  doctrine.  I  think  it  incites  to  such  progress.  It  makes  no 
attempt  at  systematic  statement.  It  aims  rather  to  enumer- 
ate the  fundamental  and  distinguishing  doctrines  of  the  Gospel. 
Any  work  of  systemizing  is  left  to  others.  But  its  enumera- 
tion is  the  fruit  of  systemizing ;  and  a  historical  interpretation, 
bringing  to  light  its  distinctive  characteristics,  shows  how 
the  inherited  system  is  already  modified,  and  how  further 
changes  are  prophesied. 

Put  into  the  creed  of  old  Calvinism,  universal  atonement, 
universal  free  moral  agency,  a  higher  conception  of  person- 
ality, and  the  system  cannot  remain  what  it  was.  The  Hop- 
kinsian founders  were  determined  it  should  not,  and  the 
history  of  the  Seminary  proved  they  were  right. 

What  a  historical  interpretation  most  emphatically  suggests 
is  the  line  along  which  this  progress  will  move  —  what  the 
direction    of  the   systemizing   process  will    be.     It   is   from 

1  The  Associate  Creed,  p.  M. 


77 

the  formal  to  the  real ;  from  power  to  character,  from  work  to 
person.  So  it  has  been  in  the  entire  history  of  theology  as 
cultivated  at  Andover.  Federalism  gave  way  to  the  reality 
of  a  divine  constitution,  to  laws  of  heredity  and  ethical  re- 
sponsibility. The  work  of  Christ  becomes  more  and  more 
connected  with  his  Person,  the  government  of  God  with  his 
character.  The  Creed  opens  the  way  to  a  more  and  more 
Christian  conception  of  God  and  to  a  systemizing  of  all 
religious  truth  under  this  inspiration  and  with  this  centre. 
A  Christocentric  Theology  —  not  a  theology  that  centres  in 
what  is  commonly  understood  by  the  words  historic  Christ, 
but  one  which  centres  in  God  as  revealed  in  Christ  —  is  just 
as  admissible  under  the  Creed  at  Andover  as  in  any  Church 
or  School.  For  the  Seminary  Creed  does  not  attempt  to  con- 
struct a  completed  system,  nor  to  point  out  and  prescribe  in 
what  the  ultimate  principle  of  the  several  truths  it  requires 
is  to  be  found.  The  new  elements  are  naturally  thrown  into 
special  prominence,  but  they  exclude  nothing  which  is  con- 
sistent with  them.  An  experienced  eye  detects  at  once  in 
this  symbol  the  Creeds  of  Nicaea  and  Constantinople,  the 
Creed  of  Chalcedon,  the  Augsburg  Confession  and  the  West- 
minster Standards,  as  well  as  the  "  improvements "  of  Ed- 
wards and  Hopkins.  And  taking  the  whole  into  account  it 
will  be  found  to  be  a  truer  order  and  conception  of  its  teach- 
ing to  make  the  main  historic  root  and  stem  of  all  Christian 
Theology  its  root  and  trunk  rather  than  some  one  of  its  fruit- 
ful branches.  Calvin  had  a  true  instinct  when  he  arranged 
the  topics  of  Christian  faith,  in  the  first  edition  of  his  Insti- 
tutes, according  to  the  scheme  of  the  Apostles'  Creed. 

4.  The  truths  of  the  Seminary  Creed  may  be  adjusted  to 
a  larger  knowledge  and  life  than  were  open  to  its  framers. 
A  historical  study  and  interpretation  of  the  Creed  shows 
that  these  truths  came  to  these  men  as  living  and  fruitful 
principles,  and  it  is  of  the  very  nature  of  such  truths  to  find 
new  application  and  service  in  new  forms. 

It  is  one  of  the  constant  surprises  to  a  student  of  the 
intellectual  and  moral  history  of  man  to  find  how  differently 
a  system,  which  has  been  superseded,  appears  when  it  is  ap- 


78 

proached  from  the  other  side  and  followed  through  its  period 
of  conflict  to  the  time  when  it  wins  its  victory,  and  for  this 
reason  passes  more  and  more  out  of  sight.  Its  moving  prin- 
ciples are  not  thus  lost,  rather  they  are  now  appropriated 
and  assimilated  and  become  a  part  of  the  life  and  working 
power  of  the  Church.  What  if  a  man  sees  a  larger  truth 
in  election  than  individual  salvation,  is  he  denying  his  Cal- 
vinistic  creed?  What  if  he  discern,  that  the  principle  of 
probation,  on  the  basis  of  atonement,  when  once  admitted, 
will  not  cramp  itself  to  the  meagre  knowledge  men  had  a 
hundred  years  ago  of  the  perishing  millions  of  Africa  and 
Asia?  Does  he  abandon  this  principle  because  he  trusts  it? 
What  if  Christianity  seems  to  him  more  and  more  to  be  the 
key  to  history,  more  and  more  evidently  to  mean  the  powers 
of  recovery  which  God  is  pouring  into  the  growing  life  of 
the  ages,  and  so  with  a  simpler  faith  than  ever  before  he 
turns  to  the  Cross  and  the  Incarnation  as  the  master  light 
of  all  his  seeing,  does  he  thereby  renounce  his  connection  with 
men  who  could  not  stop  when  they  had  written  the  article 
upon  the  doom  of  the  wicked,  but  added  a  new  close  to  their 
Creed  in  this  stately  and  comprehensive  confession  :  "  (I 
believe)  that  it  is  the  prerogative  of  God  to  bring  good  out 
of  evil,  and  that  he  will  cause  the  wrath  and  rage  of  wicked 
men  to  praise  Him  ;  and  that  all  the  evil  which  has  existed, 
and  which  will  forever  exist  in  the  moral  system  will  event- 
ually be  made  to  promote  a  most  important  purpose  under  the 
wise  and  perfect  administration  of  that  Almighty  Being  who 
will  cause  all  things  to  work  for  His  own  glory,  and  thus  fulfil 
all  His  pleasure  "  ? 

When  the  controversy  began,  whose  outcome  is  the  present 
trial,  an  editorial  in  the  Congregationalist  described  the  Semi- 
nary Creed,  with  the  Visitorial  system,  "  as  a  complicated  and 
iron-bound  endeavor  to  anchor  the  orthodoxy  of  the  future 
as  by  chain  cable  to  one  of  its  particular  phases  in  the  past." 
The  issue  thus  made  in  the  beginning  is  the  real  question  at 
the  end.  It  is  a  testing  question  for  you,  Mr.  President  and 
Gentlemen,  as  well  as  for  me.  You  are  on  trial  no  less  than 
I.     The  Seminary  is  on  trial.     Is  it  committed  to  the  main- 


79 

tenance  of  transient  opinion,  or  is  there  a  truer  interpreta- 
tion of  its  Creed  ?  Is  your  office  like  that  of  a  tither  of 
mint,  anise  and  cummin,  or  are  you  interpreters  of  a  reli- 
gious Creed  whose  words  are  to  be  understood  in  their  con- 
nections with,  the  life  of  the  Church  and  with  Him  whose 
teaching  is  Spirit  and  life  ? 

I  plead  for  no  license  of  interpretation,  for  no  violation  of 
any  just  law  of  interpretation,  for  no  departure  from  the 
natural,  grammatical,  historic  meaning  of  terms  and  phrases 
—  but  I  ask  for  breadth,  insight  and  justice.  I  do  not  ask 
you  to  make  the  Creed  utter  what  we  might  suppose  its 
framers  would  say  were  they  living  now,  but  did  not  because 
they  flourished  nearly  a  century  ago  —  ita  Lex  scripta  est. 
This  is  the  rule.  But  finding  out  what  it  says,  I  ask  you  to 
interpret  it  as  a  whole,  to  admit  the  impossibility  of  making 
every  article  in  its  obligation  complete  in  itself,  or  any 
phrase  literally  binding  which  is  traditional  and  contradictory 
to  what  is  new  in  the  Creed  and  therefore  controlling,  and  I 
especially  ask  your  attention  to  the  facts  that  at  the  begin- 
ning of  my  acceptance  of  the  Creed  I  am  reminded  of  God's 
constant  revelation  of  Himself,  and  near  its  close  I  make  this 
solemn  promise,  that  I  will  teach  the  Christian  faith  as  ex- 
pressed in  the  Creed  .  .  together  with  the  other  doctrines 
and  duties  of  our  holy  religion,  so  far  as  may  appertain  to 
my  office,  according  to  the  best  light  God  shall  give 
me.  I  have  tried  to  follow  this  light.  Until  these  recent 
unhappy  disputes  I  have  never  heard  it  questioned  at  Andover 
but  that  the  Creed  could  be  taken  on  the  principles  I  have 
stated.  I  came  with  the  understanding  that  it  was  thus  lib- 
erally interpreted  and  administered.  I  supposed  such  a 
policy  to  be  as  much  a  recognized  part  of  the  institution  as 
having  a  library  or  daily  prayers.  I  believe  that  it  alone 
really  fulfils  the  true  intention  of  the  Founders.  Among  my 
reasons  for  such  a  faith  are  these  : 

1.  The  Seminary  was  organized  and  its  Creed  drawn  to  be  a 
means  of  union  of  the  various  parties,  or  as  they  were  called, 
denominations,  of  Orthodox  Congregationalists  then  existing. 
Few  realize  how  many  and  deep  were  the  divisions  in  those 


80 

(lavs — leaving  out  of  account  the  great  schism  which  was 
hastening  —  how  they  fomented  jealousies  and  suspicions 
and  separated  brethren  into  cliques  and  factions  and  arrayed 
them  as  supporters  of  this  periodical  or  that,  and  even  of  dif- 
ferent missionary  organizations.  The  necessity  *)f  union  was 
paramount  in  the  minds  of  the  leading  men  who  founded  the 
Seminary.  It  appears  abundantly  in  their  published  corre- 
spondence, and  will  not  I  presume  be  disputed.  Dr.  Bacon 
at  the  Semi-Centennial  of  the  Seminary  expressed  the  com- 
mon and  undisputed  opinion  when  he  characterized  the 
establishment  of  the  Seminary  as  "  an  epoch  in  the  history  of 
New  England  theology,"  and  added  "  It  was  founded,  not 
for  the  special  interest  of  any  one  locality  or  district,  nor  for 
the  special  system  of  any  theological  discoverer,  but  for  the 
common  interest  of  the  churches,  and  for  the  common  ortho- 
dox}'  of  Massachusetts  and  New  England.  It  was  pledged 
at  the  outset  to  a  large  and  tolerant  orthodoxy,  as  distin- 
guished from  the  intolerance  and  contentiousness  by  which 
the  little  cliques  and  parties  that  arise  in  a  particular  locality 
and  around  a  particular  great  man  are  too  often  character- 
ized.'"1 Unless  there  can  be  room  in  its  Faculty  for  men  who 
are  loyal  to  what  Dr.  Bacon  calls  "the  common  orthodoxy  of 
Massachusetts  and  New  England  "  (by  which  he  does  not 
mean  the  ordinary  opinion,  or  that  of  a  majority),  but  who 
differ  from  others  of  their  brethren  as  Dr.  Stiles  differed  from 
Dr.  Hopkins,  or  Emmons  from  Burton,  or  French  from  Spring, 
all  of  whom  Dr.  Bacon  regards  as  within  the  purpose  of  the 
Creed,2  the  Seminary  fails  to  fulfil  the  object  for  which  it 
was  founded. 

2.  The  general  structure  of  the  Creed  and  the  clauses  re- 
specting God's  constant  revelation  and  the  promise  which 
implies  new  light,  favor  the  same  conclusion. 

3.  The  Constitution  of  the  Seminary  implies  throughout  the 
faith  of  the  Founders  in  the  advancement  of  religious  knowl- 
edge.    It  bears   throughout   the   impress  of   the  broad   and 

1  Memorial  of  the  Fiftieth  Anniversary,  Andover  :  Published  by  Warren 
F.  I  »raper,  1859,  p.  101.     See  also  The  Panoplist  IV.  pp.  372,  373. 

2  Memorial,  p.  99. 


81 

liberal  mind  of  Dr.  Pearson,  as  well  as  of  the  generosity  and 
public  spirit  of  the  donors.  It  was  founded  to  increase  "  the 
number  of  learned  and  able  Defenders  of  the  Gospel  of  Christ 
as  well  as  of  orthodox,  pious,  and  zealous  Ministers  of  the 
New  Testament."  A  three  years'  residence  was  deemed  ua 
period  scarcely  sufficient  for  acquiring  that  fund  of  knowl- 
edge which  is  necessary  for  a  Minister  of  the  Gospel."  Greek 
and  Hebrew  were  made  obligatory  through  the  course.  Pro- 
vision was  made  by  which  new  foundations,  whether  chairs 
of  instruction  or  scholarships,  should  be  increased.  The  cur- 
riculum sketched  at  the  outset  is  larger  than  has  yet  been 
realized.  A  theological  university,  exceeding  any  thing  before 
known,  was  in  mind.  There  was  threatening  what  was  re- 
garded as  a  great  religious  defection.  It  was  to  be  met  not 
simply  with  religious  zeal  and  asserted  authority  of  revela- 
tion, but  with  all  available  weapons  of  reason  and  learning. 
A  perusal  of  Mr.  Abbot's  will  by  which  the  Seminary  re- 
ceived a  most  munificent  bequest  will  satisfy  any  reader  of 
the  generous  purposes  of  knowledge  with  which  the  institu- 
tion was  started.  But  is  it  possible  to  suppose  that  all  this 
was  done  in  the  expectation  that  there  would  be  no  advance- 
ment in  the  understanding  of  truth,  or  that  men  would  not 
be  allowed,  while  holding  fast  to  the  principles  of  the  Creed, 
to  put  them  in  new  relations  and  gain  new  results? 

What  actually  was  done  is  well  known  in  the  case  of  Pro- 
fessor Stuart.  His  friends  were  at  times  anxious  lest  he  was 
verging  to  Sabellianism  or  rationalism,  and  he  was  always 
under  fire,  but  Mr.  Bartlet  went  on  with  his  remittances,, 
and  when  once  a  Committee  of  the  Trustees  remonstrated 
at  certain  offences  committed  in  the  first  edition  of  his  com- 
mentary on  Romans,  Professor  Stuart  replied  that  he  consid- 
ered the  interference  "  inquisitorial,"  and  this  ended  the 
matter.  He  taught  in  variance  from  the  Creed  all  his  life  on 
"  The  Eternal  Sonship,"  and  if,  as  I  suppose  to  be  true,  his 
opinion  is  now  generally  rejected,  this  also  shows  the  wisdom 
of  trusting  to  the  power  of  truth  in  such  matters. 

The  character  of  the  advisers  of  the  Associate  Founders, 
their  humility,  and  their  faith  in  doctrinal  progress,  the  school 


82 

of  theology  to  which  they  belonged,  concur  to  the  same 
result.  I  have  spoken  thus  far  of  the  so-called  Original 
Founders  particular^,  but  not  exclusively,  for  the  Associate 
Foundation  became  a  part  of  one  and  the  same  institution. 

I  turn  now  to  the  Hopkinsians.  They  had  the  spirit  of 
their  great  leader  whose  words  I  will  quote  from  the  memoir 
by  Dr.  Park. 

"  When  tired,"  sa3's  his  biographer,  "  of  hearing  the  stale  charge 
that  he  had  started  new  doctrines  into  life,  he  responds  :  '  I  now 
declare,  I  had  much  rather  publish  New  Divinity  than  any  other. 
And  the  more  of  this  the  better,  —  if  it  be  but  true.  Nor  do  I 
think  any  doctrine  can  be  "  too  strange  to  be  true."  I  should 
think  it  hardly  worth  while  to  write,  if  I  had  nothing  new  to  s&y.' 
In  his  '  Animadversions  on  Mr.  Hart's  Late  Dialogue,'  Hopkins  al- 
ludes to  his  having  been  falsely  accused  of  propounding  new 
theories,  and  replies  :  '  This  he  [Mr.  Hart]  has  done  over  and  over 
again,  about  a  dozen  times.  He  calls  them  "  new  doctrines,"  "  a 
new  system  or  rather  chaos  of  divinity,"  "  upstart  errors,"  etc. 
And  the  teachers  of  them  he  calls  "new  apostles,"  "new 
divines,"  "  new  teachers,"  etc.  —  If  this  were  true,  I  see  not  what 
reason  there  would  be  to  make  such  a  great  outcry  about  it. 
There  is  really  no  evidence  against  these  doctrines.  It  is  at  least 
possible,  that  there  is  some  truth  contained  in  the  Bible,  which  has 
not  been  commonly  taught ;  yea,  has  never  been  mentioned  by 
any  writer  since  the  apostles  ;  and  whenever  that  shall  be  dis- 
covered and  brought  out,  it  will  be  new.  And  who  knows  but  that 
some  such  new  discoveries  may  be  made  in  our  dajr?  If  so,  un- 
happy and  very  guilty  will  be  the  man  who  shall  attempt  to  fright 
people,  and  raise  their  prejudices  against  it,  by  raising  the  cry  of 
New  Divinity.  Indeed,  I  question  whether  an  author  can,  with 
a  right  temper  and  view,  take  this  method  to  run  an}-  doctrine 
down,  by  appealing  to  the  prejudices  of  people,  and  keeping  up 
a  constant  loud  cry  of  new,  upstart  divinity.'  "  1 

"  '  There  is  no  reason  to  doubt,'  he  says  in  his  seventy-second 
year,  '  that  light  will  so  increase  in  the  church,  and  men  will  be 
raised  up,  who  will  make  such  advances  in  opening  the  Scripture 
and  in  the  knowledge  of  divine  truth,  that  what  is  now  done  and 

i  Works  of  Samuel  Hopkins,  D.D.  Boston,  Doctrinal  Tract  and  Book 
Society,  1S52.     Vol.  I.,  pp.  177,  178. 


83 

written  will  be  so  far  superseded  as  to  appear  imperfect  and  incon- 
siderable, compared  with  that  superior  light,  with  which  the  church 
will  then  be  blessed.'  "  : 

It  should  go  without  saying  that  if  a  Professor,  following 
the  best  light  which  dawns  upon  him,  finds  himself  wander- 
ing away  from  the  Creed  he  is  not  to  set  up  his  private  judg- 
ment and  conceal  his  divergence,  nor  if  the  variation  puts 
him  in  contradiction  to  the  essential  principles  and  the  intent 
of  the  Creed  do  I  raise  any  question  as  to  his  duty  or  yours. 

What  I  maintain,  and  where  I  abide  in  good  conscience  is 
this :  I  have  not  thus  violated  my  obligations  under  the 
Creed,  even  upon  a  close  and  technical  construction  of  them. 
And  if,  as  I  also  maintain,  the  Creed  is  a  summary  of  princi- 
ples which  are  to  be  applied  and  developed  from  generation 
to  generation,  I  have  done  something  far  better  and  more 
faithful  than  a  literal  repetition  of  them  —  I  have  used  them, 
and  with  them  have  confronted  present  great  and  important 
questions  of  religious  thought  and  life. 

What  is  proposed  to  be  done?  To  remove,  directly  or 
indirectly  almost,  perhaps  quite,  an  entire  Faculty,  and  to 
proclaim  to  the  world  that  an  institution  started  as  was 
Andover  Seminary  has  outlived  its  usefulness.  Not  that  men 
cannot  be  found  to  fill  its  chairs  who  may  think  that  they 
are  taking  the  Creed  literally  when  they  confess  at  once  a 
limited  atonement  and  an  unlimited  one,  a  federal  headship 
which  is  figurative  and  an  eternal  Sonship  which  is  temporal. 
Not  that  others  still,  if  necessary,  cannot  be  discovered  who 
hold  that  when  Paul  says,  "  as  many  as  have  sinned  without 
law  shall  also  perish  without  law,"  he  cuts  off  all  hope  for 
every  heathen,  and  no  offence  need  be  taken  at  reading 
the  word  all  into  the  Creed  when  it  says  that  the  effect- 
ually called  receive  the  blessings  of  salvation  in  this  life, 
or  who  still  adhere  to  the  theology  of  the  covenants  —  but 
it  will  indeed  be  a  new  Andover  when  such  principles  of 
interpretation  of  the  Creed  are  sanctioned.  And  how  long 
can  such  a  method  of  administration  be  perpetuated  ?  If 
indeed  the  language  of  the  instrument  were  perfectly  plain, 

i  Ibid.,  p.  231. 


84 

the  argument  from  consequences  would  be  irrelevant  here. 
But  instead  of  a  perspicuous  utterance  there  is  at  most 
silence,  while  for  a  liberal  interpretation  are  the  deep  sug- 
gestions of  its  great  doctrines  of  atonement  and  moral 
agency,  of  the  Incarnation  and  an  infinitely  wise  and  benev- 
olent and  sovereign  God,  with  his  purpose  binding  together 
the  ages,  and  the  declaration  of  God's  larger  and  constant 
revelation  in  his  works,  and  the  solemn  promise  exacted  to 
look  for  light,  and  the  happy  auguries  and  peaceful  promise 
and  generous  surroundings  of  its  birth,  and  the  expectation 
of  the  Founders  that  they  had  established  an  institution 
which  should  continue  to  bless  the  world  so  long  as  the  sun 
and  moon  shall  endure. 

I  am  conscious  of  no  desire  paramount  to  the  good  of 
the  Seminary.  The  finger  of  scorn  is  pointed  at  what  is 
claimed  to  be  the  small  support  gained  for  the  opinions  ex- 
pressed in  Progressive  Orthodoxy.  We  do  not  set  up  those 
opinions  as  a  standard  for  Andover  Professors.  Some  of  our 
colleagues,  esteemed  and  beloved,  may  not  hold  them.  I 
really  do  not  know  where  they  all  stand.  And,  besides,  it  is 
a  new  thing  for  men  who  demand  fidelity  to  the  Hopkinsian 
Founders  to  make  the  degree  of  present  acceptance  of  a  tenet 
the  test  of  its  truth !  Writing  in  his  seventy-fifth  year  Dr. 
Samuel  Hopkins  said, 

"About  forty  years  ago  there  were  but  few,  perhaps  not  more  than 
four  or  five,  who  espoused  the  sentiments  which  since  have  been 
called  Edwardean  and  New  Divinity,  and,  since  after  some  improve- 
ment was  made  upon  them,  Hopkintonian  or  Hopkinsian  senti- 
ments. But  those  sentiments  have  so  spread  since  that  time 
among  ministers,  especially  those  who  have  since  come  on  the 
stage,  that  there  are  now  more  than  one  hundred  in  the  ministry, 
who  espouse  the  same  sentiments,  in  the  United  States  of  America. 
And  the  number  appears  to  be  fast  increasing,  and  these  sentiments 
appear  to  be  coming  more  and  more  into  credit,  and  are  to  be  un- 
derstood, and  the  odium  which  has  been  cast  on  them,  and  those 
who  preached  them,  is  greatly  subdued."  1 

i  Hopkins's  Works,  I.,  237,  238. 


85 

His  biographer  adds  that  "  the  spirit  of  the  new  Divinity 
was  in  the  hearts  of  thousands,  who  did  not  favor  it  in  all  its 
forms.  The  term  '  Hopkinsian  '  soon  became  the  common  des- 
ignation of  those  evangelical  or  orthodox  divines  who  favored 
the  doctrines  of  general  atonement,  natural  ability,  the  active 
nature  of  all  holiness  and  sin,  and  the  Justice  of  God  in  im- 
puting to  men  none  but  their  own  personal  transgressions.  " 1 
That  is,  in  1756  there  were  five  clergymen  who  dared  believe 
that  men  are  not  punished  for  a  sin  they  did  not  commit,  and 
that  Christ  died  for  all  men,  and  now  I  suppose  there  are  not 
so  many  in  New  England  who  would  be  willing  to  be  known 
as  holding  the  opposite.  Universal  atonement  is  the  orthodox 
belief. 

It  is  idle  to  question  that  in  all  lands,  in  all  evangelical 
churches  to-day  the  question  of  the  personal  relation  of  Christ 
to  the  entire  race  for  which  He  died  is  receiving  an  attention 
never  before  given  to  it.  The  Church  at  large  has  never  yet 
passed  upon  it.  It  was  not  before  the  minds  of  the  authors 
of  the  Catechism  or  of  the  Seminary  Creed.  It  could  not 
be.  Providence  shapes  problems  for  the  Church.  It  puts 
this  one  before  us.  It  would  be  at  least  doubtful  whether  if 
the  Creed  contained  some  expressions  which  might  be  used 
to  exclude  the  new  doctrine  it  would  not  be  an  unwarrant- 
able use  of  an  incidental  phrase  to  make  it  interdictive  and 
decisive  of  a  question  out  of  the  purview  of  the  framers. 
Fortunately  there  is  no  such  difficulty  to  be  settled.  The 
Creed  admits  by  its  silence  and  by  its  principles,  at  least  as 
a  legitimate  inquiry,  all  that  has  been  contended  for  by  me 
in  the  Review  and  in  Progressive  Orthodoxy. 

I  offer  this  as  a  complete  and  full  justification  against  the 
charges  of  the  complainants. 

i  Ibid.,  p.  238. 


NOTE. 

The  following  are  the  particular  charges  which  are  specially  consid- 
ered, or  referred  to,  in  the  foregoing  argument  :  — 

Page  9. 

"1.  That  the  Bible  is  not  '  the  only  perfect  rule  of  faith  and  practice,' 
but  is  fallible  and  untrustworthy  even  in  some  of  its  religious  teachings." 

Page  20. 

"2.    That  Christ  in  the  days  of  his  humiliation  was  a  finite  being, 

limited  in  all  his  attributes,  capacities  and  attainments;  in  other  words, 

was  not  '  God  and  Man.'  " 

Page  20. 

"  3.  That  no  man  has  power  or  capacity  to  repent  without  knowledge 
of  God  in  Christ." 

Page  24. 
"4.    That  mankind,  save  as  they  have  received  a  knowledge  of  'the 
historic  Christ,'  are  not  sinners,  or,  if  they  are,  not  of  such  sinfulness  aa 
to  be  in  danger  of  being  lost.     ('  Progressive  Orthodoxy,'  p.  55.)  " 

Page  25. 

"  5.  That  no  man  can  be  lost  without  having  had  knowledge  of  Christ. 
('  Progressive  Orthodoxy,''  pp.  63,  64.)  " 

Page  25. 

"  6.  That  the  atonement  of  Christ  consists  essentially  and  chiefly  in 
his  becoming  identified  with  the  human  race  through  his  incarnation,  in 
order  that,  by  his  union  with  men,  he  might  endow  them  with  the  power 
to  repent,  and  thus  impart  to  them  an  augmented  value  in  the  view  of 
God,  and  so  render  God  propitious  towards  them." 

Page  26. 

"  7.    That  the  Trinity  is  modal,  or  monarchian,  and  not  a  Trinity  of 

Persons." 

Page  31. 

"  8.    That  the  work  of  the  Holy  Spirit  is  chiefly  confined  to  the  sphere 

of  historic  Christianity." 

Page  31. 

"  9.    That  without  the  knowledge  of  God  in  Christ,  men  do  not  deserve 

the  punishment  of  the  law,  and   that  therefore  their  salvation  is  not 

'  wholly  of  grace.'  " 

Page  31. 

"  10.    That  faith   ought   to   be   scientific   and   rational    rather  than 

scriptural." 

Page  33. 

"  11.    That  there  is,  and  will  be,  probation  after  death  for  all  men  who 

do  not  decisively  reject  Christ  during  the  earthly  life  ;   and  that  this 

should  be  emphasized,  made  influential,  and  even  central  in  systematic 

theology." 

The  "  Reply"  to  which  reference  is  made  on  page  24  and  elsewhere,  is 
the  answer  filed  by  the  respondent  with  the  Board  of  Visitors  on  Nov. 
30,  1S86,  and  extensively  published  by  the  daily  press. 


STATEMENT   OF   PROFESSOR   WILLIAM   J.   TUCKER. 


Mr.  President,  and  Gentlemen  of  the  Board  of  Visitors : 

It  is  not  my  intention,  nor  the  intention  of  the  respondents 
who  may  follow  me,  to  traverse  the  ground  covered  in  the 
argument  of  our  honored  colleague.  We  adopt  by  common 
consent  the  views  therein  expressed  in  regard  to  the  Creed 
of  the  Seminary,  and  the  terms  of  subscription  to  it,  and  we 
accept  the  answer  therein  made  to  the  charges  and  specifica- 
tions of  the  complainants.  If  now  we  make  further  demands 
upon  your  time  in  this  hearing  —  and  our  demands  will  not 
be  large  —  to  meet  the  charges  as  preferred  against  us  in 
person,  it  is  because  of  personal  relations  which  we  severally 
hold  to  the  Creed  of  the  Seminary.  There  are  obligations 
which  apply  to  us  in  common,  and  there  are  obligations  and 
requirements  which  derive  a  special  meaning  and  force  from 
their  application  to  the  departments  which  we  individually 
represent. 

Before  I  pass  to  my  personal  defense,  I  ask  your  indul- 
gence for  the  moment  to  an  incidental  matter  of  general  inter- 
est. During  the  progress  of  this  hearing,  frequent  reference 
has  been  made  in  somewhat  depreciatory  language  to  the 
interposition  of  counsel  on  behalf  of  the  respondents.  I  call 
up  the  fact  of  the  employment  of  counsel  not  for  apology  but 
for  explanation.  The  first  intimation  which  we  received  of 
these  proceedings  was  in  the  receipt  of  a  communication  from 
your  honorable  body  containing  the  charges  and  specifica- 
tions of  the  complainants,  accompanied  by  an  order  that  we 
file  an  answer  within  fifteen  days.  We  had  no  knowledge 
whatever  of  the  affair  beyond  that  which  was  conveyed  in 


88 

the  communication  before  us.  We  knew  nothing  of  the 
origin  or  motive  or  resources  of  the  prosecution.  It  seemed 
to  be  an  organized  movement  and  representative  of  some- 
thing, for  one  of  the  prosecutors  signed  himself  "  a  trustee  " 
and  the  others  "a  committee  of  certain  of  the  Alumni." 
To  this  communication  we  made  reply  at  the  specified 
time,  not  only  without  counsel,  but  without  having  taken 
legal  advice ;  and  each  man  made  reply  for  himself,  not  as  in 
the  answer  to  the  amended  complaint,  when  we  united  in  a 
common  reply.  It  was  not  until  the  case  began  to  assume  a 
judicial  character  under  the  subsequent  orders  of  your  Board, 
that  we  introduced  counsel,  and  from  that  time  the  case  has 
gone  on  upon  its  legal  or  theological  side  as  either  issue  has  for 
the  time  been  uppermost.  I  have  recalled  this  fact,  in  refer- 
ence to  our  first  answer,  to  your  knowledge,  because  iljfhas 
been  overlooked  and  obscured.  You  will  bear  us  witness  that 
the  original  reply  anticipated  all  legal  procedures,  and  that  it 
was  direct,  frank  and  specific  upon  the  theological  questions 
at  issue. 

The  charge,  Mr.  President,  upon  which  I  appear  before 
you  in  this  hearing,  I  now  understand  to  be  that  of  hetero- 
doxy in  respect  to  the  Creed,  involving  the  more  special 
charge  upon  myself  in  connection  with  Professor  Smyth, 
according  to  the  terms  of  our  foundations,  that  I  am  "not 
an  orthodox  and  consistent  Calvinist."  Up  to  the  closing 
argument  for  the  complainants,  there  seemed  to  be  no  little 
confusion  between  the  complainants  and  their  counsel  as  to 
the  exact  nature  of  this  prosecution,  whether  it  were  for 
breach  of  trust  or  for  heresy.  The  argument  to  which  I  have 
referred  seems  to  settle  this  question.  The  Counsel  said ; 
"  There  is  no  breach  of  trust  suggested  against  Professor 
Smyth  by  me,  and  there  has  not  been.  It  must  have  been 
only  casually,  by  inference,  if  it  has  ever  been  introduced 
into  these  proceedings.  We  never  expected  any  such  thing 
would  be  done."  And  again  "  I  should  suppose  that  if  any 
doctrine,  held  as  a  distinctive  doctrine  by  this  interesting 
company  of  persons,  not  intended  in  any  way  to  be  approved, 


89 

commended  or  forwarded  by  the  Foundation  of  the  Andover 
Theological  Seminary,  who  seemed  to  be  grouped  here  at  the 
end  of  the  creed,  almost  on  the  principle  of  the  tares,  bind- 
ing them  in  bundles  to  burn  them,  — '  In  opposition  not  only 
to  Atheists  and  Infidels,  but  to  Jews,  Papists,  Mahometans, 
Arians,  Pelagians,  Antinominians,  Arminians,  Socinians,  Sa- 
bellians,  Unitarians,  and  Universalists,  and  all  other  heresies 
and  errors,'  —  I  should  suppose  that  there  could  be  no  doubt 
that  if  there  were  anything  which  could  be  included  in  that 
list,  could  be  proved  and  established  in  this  theological  dis- 
cussion as  having  been  taught  by  a  professor  at  Andover, 
you  would  have  no  difficulty  about  it." 

Assuming  from  these  admissions  that  the  charge  is  that  of 
heterodoxy  in  regard  to  the  Creed  of  the  Seminary,  I  will 
say  that  I  accept  without  question,  whatever  of  responsibil- 
ity may  attach  to  the  publication  of  the  articles,  and  of  the 
book,  from  which  the  citations  in  support  of  the  charges 
have  been  drawn.  I  make  no  distinction  between  what  I 
teach  and  what  I  publish,  alone  or  in  responsible  connection 
with  others,  save  in  this  regard  —  and  upon  this  distinction 
I  do  insist  —  I  endeavor  to  teach  according  to  the  natural 
proportion  of  truth ;  I  publish  according  to  the  exigencies  of 
public  discussion,  claiming  in  this  regard  the  unvexed  right 
of  publication,  subject  only  to  fidelity  to  the  Constitution 
and  Creed  of  the  Seminary  in  the  subject-matter  of  what  I 
publish. 

My  defense  is  twofold.  It  covers  my  personal  and  my  offi- 
cial relation  to  the  Creed. 

/  answer  first ;  that  the  theology  of  "  Progressive  Ortho- 
doxy "  is  a  natural  and  legitimate  outcome  of  the  Creed  of 
the  Seminary,  especially  at  the  point  of  greatest  contention, 
that  of  probation  for  all  men  under  the  gospel.  I  may  be 
allowed  to  say  that  there  is  a  presumption  in  favor  of  this 
theology  as  consistent  with  the  teachings  of  Andover,  be- 
cause it  is  held  and  put  forth  by  men  who  are  theologically 
the  product  of  Andover  or  of  the  influences  which  made 
Andover. 

In  the  original  form  under  which  the  charges  were  pre- 


90 

ferred,  three  of  the  four  complainants  signed  themselves  as  a 
Committee  of  "  certain  of  the  Alumni."  This  term  alumni 
has  in  itself  a  significance  which  does  not  necessarily  attach 
to  any  merely  official  connection  with  the  Seminary.  It  is 
suggestive  of  the  more  sensitive,  if  less  responsible,  relations 
of  loyalty  and  affection.  In  this  respect  to  be  an  alumnus 
is  more  than  to  be  a  professor  or  a  trustee  or  a  visitor. 
When  therefore  a  case  is  made  up  of  certain  alumni  against 
certain  professors,  it  seems  to  be  a  case  in  the  interest  of 
loyalty. 

But,  in  the  present  instance,  of  the  five  accused  pfttfessors 
four  are  alumni,  and  of  the  one  who  is  not  an  alumnus,  though 
for  a  considerable  time  a  graduate  student,  it  may  fairly  be' 
said  that  in  what  belongs  to  him  by  inheritance,  and  in  what 
he  has  earned  by  long  and  devoted  service,  he  represents  more? 
than  any  other  one  of  us,  of  this  quality  of  affectionate  loy- 
alty. Another  professor,  I  refer  to  Professor  Churchill,  passed 
immediately  upon  graduation  into  the  service  of  the  Seminary. 
And  of  the  remaining  three,  Professors  Harris,  Hineks  and 
myself,  graduating  within  two  or  three  years  of  one  another* 
we  came  back  into  the  service  of  the  Seminary  chiefly  be- 
cause we  were  alumni.  We  were  not  ambitious  of  the  posi- 
tions which  we  now  fill.  Content  and  satisfied  in  the  work  of 
the  pastorate  we  returned  to  Andover  at  its  call  because  we 
loved  Andover.  We  had  its  traditions ;  our  roots  were  in 
its  soil.  And  coming  to  our  chairs  from  the  pastorate,  not 
from  fields  of  speculative  thought,  but  from  contact  with 
men,  we  brought  with  us  those  conceptions  of  Christian 
truth  which  we  have  since  tried  to  unfold.  For  myself  it  is 
absolutely  true,  that  I  am  conscious  of  holding  no  other  gos- 
pel to-day,  in  any  other  spirit  or  with  any  other  conclusion, 
than  that  which  I  held  in  my  active  ministry,  and  it  never 
occurred  to  me,  though  in  the  course  of  my  ministry  I  crossed 
and  recrossed  the  line  of  my  denomination  that  Andover 
would  ever  summon  me  to  account  for  my  holding  of  the 
gospel  as  contrary  to  her  traditions,  her  teachings  and  her 
spirit.  I  speak  now  as  an  alumnus,  not  as  a  professor.  And 
in  so  speaking  I  think  that  I  represent  at  least  "  certain  of 


91 

the  Alumni."  For  I  remember  that  when  attempts  have 
been  made  at  regularly  constituted  alumni  meetings  to 
inaugurate  proceedings  like  the  present,  they  have  ignomin- 
iously  failed. 

I  am  singled  out,  Mr.  President,  in  connection  with  Pro- 
fessor Srnj'th  upon  the  charge,  related,  I  suppose  to  the 
theory  of  a  Christian  probation,  that  I  am  not  an  "  orthodox 
and.  consistent  Calvinist."  You  will  allow  me  to  say,  with- 
out argument,  that  if  I  am  not  "  an  orthodox  and  consistent 
Calvinist,"  according  to  the  Creed,  in  my  theological  convic- 
tions and  methods,  I  am  nothing.  Without  permitting  my- 
self to  put  that  which  is  of  a  name  or  of  a  school  above  that 
which  is*  of  Christ,  I  believe  in  Calvinism,  not  as  the  Creed 
found  it  but  as  the  Creed  tried  to  leave  it.  I  believe  in  its 
ruling  idea  and  method  as  against  the  idea  and  method  to 
which  it  is  historically  opposed.  I  locate  the  hope  of  man 
in  the  power  and  purpose  of  God,  not  in  exaggerated  and 
unreal  notions  of  man's  ability.  Christianity  is  to  me  above 
all  things  a  religion  of  motives.  Calvinism  is  a  religion  of 
motives.  It  emphasizes  the  "  power  of  God  "  unto  salvation, 
though  in  its  older  and  higher  forms  it  limits  the  application 
of  the  power,  shutting  it  up  within  an  arbitrary  election. 
The  Creed  takes  up  this  idea  of  power  which  inheres  in  Cal- 
vinism and  gives  it  breadth  and  freedom.  To  me  it  is  an 
inspiration,  remembering  the  struggle  of  which  the  Creed 
bears  ineradicable  marks,  which  makes  the  Creed  a  thing  of 
life  and  not  an  instrument  of  bondage — to  me  it  is  an  inspi- 
ration to  follow  this  idea  of  divine  power  and  purpose,  which 
the  Creed  inherits  from  the  Catechism,  as  it  feels  its  way 
along  till  it  finds  the  gateway  of  universal  Atonement, 
through  which  it  pours  its  now  free  and  invigorating  current. 
The  current  which  runs  through  the  Creed  is  Calvinism. 
The  Creed  widens  its  banks.  And  the  natural  culmination 
of  the  Calvinism  of  the  Creed  lies  to  my  mind  in  the  very 
hope  of  which  I  am  chiefly  called  in  question,  the  hope 
which  I  reverently  entertain  without  equivocation  and  with- 
out excuse,  that  God  according  to  the  eternal  purpose  which 
he  purposed  in  Christ,  will  see  to  it  that  every  soul  comes 


92 

into  some  real  relation  to  Christ's  atoning  sacrifice  before 
any  soul  passes  into  the  eternal  condemnation.  And  in  the 
name  of  the  Calvinism  of  the  Creed  I  protest  against  the 
contention  of  those  who,  reaching  in  some  other  way  a  like 
conclusion,  who  are  indignant  if  a  theology  with  a  narrower 
conclusion  is  imputed  to  them,  do  yet  charge  me  with  being 
heterodox  toward  the  Creed,  if  I  believe  that  God  is  saving 
such  as  are  being  saved  in  the  way  of  consistent  Calvinism 
and  of  orthodox  Christianity. 

I  have  used  the  latter  term,  orthodox  Christianity,  ad- 
visedly. For  as  I  believe  the  philosophy  of  those  who  deny 
the  possibility  of  a  Christian  probation  to  all  men,  leads 
awa}'  from  orthodox  Christianity.  If  there  be  any  in  these 
days  who  accept  the  dogma  of  the  universal  perdition  of  the 
race  outside  Christianity,  these  are  removed  from  an}r  interest 
or  concern  in  existing  controversies.  But  among  those  who 
refuse  to  accept  the  dogma,  there  can  be  but  two  parties, 
those  who  look  upon  man  as  the  subject  of  redemption, 
and  therefore  accessible  in  some  way  and  at  some  time  to 
the  motives  of  redemption,  and  those  who  look  upon  man 
as  having  a  sufficiency  of  motive  in  himself  under  the  light 
of  nature,  and  under  the  work  of  the  Spirit  independent  of 
the  cross  of  Christ.  Can  there  be  any  doubt  as  to  which  of 
these  theories  is  the  more  closely  related  to  Calvinism  and 
which  to  Unitarianism  ?  Can  there  be  any  doubt  toward 
which  the  Creed  of  the  Seminary  inclines  ?  If  Andover 
Seminary  was  established  to  oppose  and  counteract  any  in- 
fluence it  was  that  of  Unitarianism.  For  this  object  the 
more  extreme  parties  in  orthodoxy  were  willing  to  sink  their 
differences  and  unite.  This  is  an  historic  fact  which  none 
will  dispute.  Now  I  do  not  charge  upon  those  who  hold  the 
theory  of  salvation  under  the  light  of  nature  that  they  are 
Unitarians,  but  I  do  wish  to  suggest  to  you  that  in  their  ea- 
gerness to  use  any  and  all  arguments  to  combat  the  theory 
of  a  Christian  probation,  they  are  making  themselves  exceed- 
ingly familiar  with  the  old  time  arguments  of  Unitarians  in 
regard  to  Christian  Missions.  And  I  wish  to  suggest  further 
that  in  the  impending  conflict  in  this  country  between  Chris- 


93 

tianit}r  and  Naturalism  it  is  of  some  consequence  which  way 
the  influence  of  Anclover  counts.  The  present  controversy 
may  seem  provincial.  It  is  called  so  by  some  who  have  not 
discovered  its  larger  bearings.  But  it  is  the  door  through 
which  New  England  theology  is  to  enter  in  and  take  its  part 
in  the  contention  to  which  I  have  referred,  the  contention 
between  Christianity  and  Naturalism.  And  my  study  of  the 
Creed  convinces  me  that  Andover  has  in  hand  a  weapon  of 
exceeding  keenness  and  power  if  its  edge  is  not  turned  in 
the  very  opening  of  the  conflict. 

My  second  answer  has  to  do  with  my  official  relation  to 
the  Creed.  I  am  a  teacher  of  Homiletics.  It  is  my  duty  to 
instruct  in  regard  to  the  subject-matter  and  the  method  of 
preaching,  and  show  how  the  truth  can  be  made  the  instru- 
ment of  conviction  and  persuasion  in  bringing  men  to 
Christ. 

I  answer  then  in  the  second  place  that  the  method  of  the 
theology  which  is  called  in  question  best  satisfies  the  require- 
ments of  the  Creed  in  respect  to  the  conduct  of  my  profess- 
orship. I  am  called  upon  in  that  Creed  to  teach  the  truth 
in  opposition  to  all  errors  which  are  "  hazardous  to  the  souls 
of  men."  To  me  this  is  the  most  serious  part  of  the  Creed. 
Even  in  the  enumeration  of  errors  which  gives  to  the  Creed 
a  somewhat  belligerent  tone  one  detects  the  earnestness  and 
scope  of  its  intention.  It  was  this  part  of  the  Creed  which 
chiefly  arrested  my  attention  when  examining  it  with  a  view 
to  subscription.  And  the  terms  of  my  subscription,  accord 
ing  to  the  testimony  which  I  have  given  you,  were  in  these 
words  —  "  The  Creed  which  I  am  about  to  read,  and  to  which 
I  shall  subscribe,  I  fully  accept  as  setting  forth  the  truth 
against  the  errors  which  it  was  designed  to  meet."  How 
was  I  to  carry  out  the  terms  of  my  subscription?  How  was 
I  to  fulfil  the  intention  of  the  Creed?  The  question  was 
one  of  method.  I  tried  to  answer  it  according  to  my  experi- 
ence. I  came  to  my  professorship  after  a  pastoral  service  of 
twelve  years.  The  two  communities  in  which  my  pastorates 
were  served  gave  me  ready  and  full  access  to  the  thoughts 
of  men,  especially  to  the  thoughts  of  men  in  their  scepticism 


94 

and  oppositions  to  Christianity.  And  under  the  study  which 
this  intercourse  gave  me  I  discovered  that  error  has  two 
means  of  livelihood.  A  given  error  lives  because  of  the 
truth  in  it.  No  error  is  all  error.  And  it  lives  because  of 
the  error  in  the  truth  which  opposes  it.  Error  thrives  upon 
all  insincerities  and  exaggerations  in  the  holding  of  truth. 
Mohammedanism,  to  take  a  remote  example  of  the  errors 
which  I  am  to  oppose,  lives  upon  the  truth  which  inheres 
in  it,  the  truth  of  God  in  His  unity  and  sovereignty :  a 
truth  so  profound  and  vital  that  it  is  impossible  for  any 
but  the  purest  type  of  Christianity  to  live  beside  it :  a  truth 
which  makes  it,  in  the  presence  of  an  impure  Christianity, 
a  perpetual  "scourge  of  God."  Take  now  an  error  speci- 
fied in  the  Creed  which  is  close  at  hand  and  most  involved 
in  the  present  controversy,  that  of  Universalisin.  Upon 
what  does  Universalism  rely  for  its  increase?  Not  simply 
upon  the  truths  which  it  holds,  for  most  of  these  are  held 
in  common  with  the  Evangelical  denominations.  Universal 
ism  thrives  upon  the  errors  of  orthodoxy,  upon  all  exagger- 
ated, untenable,  insincere  assertions  of  the  orthodox  faith. 
My  complainants  charge  "  Progressive  Orthodoxy "  with 
teaching  toward  Universalism.  What  is  their  alternative 
under  the  Creed?  The  interpretation  which  they  have 
sought  to  put  upon  the  Creed  to  counteract  this  tendency  is 
to  be  seen  in  their  use  of  the  clause  respecting  those  who 
are  effectually  called  as  in  this  life  partaking  of  justification, 
adoption  and  sanctification.  What  must  this  clause  say  to 
be  of  use  to  them  ?  Why  this,  that  those  only  who  do  in 
this  life  share  in  the  results  of  effectual  calling,  justifica- 
tion, adoption,  sanctification  and  the  like,  are  effectually 
called,  that  is  saved  :  all  others,  including  the  mass  of  the 
heathen,  and,  by  logic,  all  infants  are  lost.  Now  if  this  is 
the  true  interpretation  of  the  Creed  it  is  to  be  taught.  I  am 
to  teach  my  pupils  to  preach  it.  Suppose  they  do  preach  it ; 
what  better  means  can  they  take  to  build  up  Universalism  ? 
Is  this  the  way  to  meet  that  error  ?  What  is  the  intellectual 
difficulty  which  Universalism  seeks  to  meet  and  solve  ?  I 
have  not  found  many  men  who  disbelieved  in  future  punish- 


95 

ment.  I  have  not  found  it  difficult  to  gain  a  response  from 
any  congregation  when  preaching  upon  this  doctrine.  The 
intellectual  difficulty  does  not  lie  in  the  doctrine  itself,  fear- 
ful as  it  is,  but  in  the  injustice  and  inequalities  of  appli- 
cation which  attach  to  it  under  some  representations  of  it. 
The  state  of  the  public  mind  in  respect  to  this  doctrine  of 
future  punishment,  so  far  as  I  have  observed,  is  precisely 
like  that  which  existed  fifty  years  ago  in  respect  to  the  doc- 
trine of  election.  Men  were  not  then  in  revolt  against  the 
sovereignty  of  God.  They  were  in  revolt  against  the  nar- 
row and  arbitrary  application  of  it.  They  are  in  revolt 
to-day  against  a  like  narrow  and  arbitrary  application  of  the 
Divine  justice  ;  they  are  in  revolt  against  the  assertion  of  a 
dogma,  which  assigns  the  greater  part  of  the  human  race  to 
perdition  without  the  opportunity  of  accepting  or  rejecting 
its  Redeemer. 

This  much  for  the  Creed  on  its  apologetic  side  as  related 
to  the  pulpit.  I  am  more  concerned  with  the  Creed  on  its 
evangelistic  side,  for  the  great  end  which  it  has  in  view  is 
the  conversion  of  men  under  the  proclamation  of  the  gospel. 
But  here  it  is  charged  that  "  Progressive  Orthodoxy"  takes 
away  the  urgency  of  the  gospel,  that  it  changes  the  accent 
of  the  gospel,  in  the  emphasis  which  it  naturally  lays  on  the 
present.  To  which  I  reply  that  the  view  there  set  forth 
ought  to  produce,  and  does  produce  when  accepted,  precisely 
the  opposite  effect.  Why  is  the  preacher  able  to  say  to  men, 
"Now  is  the  accepted  time."  "  Now  is  the  day  of  salvation"? 
Is  it  not  because  of  the  offer  of  salvation  which  has  gone  be- 
fore? Suppose  a  missionary  to  go  up  and  down  Africa  and 
without  first  offering  Christ  to  men  to  say  to  them  "  Now  is 
the  accepted  time  !  "  what  meaning  would  his  words  convey  ? 
Words  take  their  meaning  from  their  connection.  It  is  the 
incoming  of  Christianity,  the  offer  of  salvation,  which  puts 
such  a  meaning  into  the  "  now  "  of  men's  lives.  So  the  Bap- 
tist as  he  saw  the  Jewish  skies  beginning  to  flush  under  the 
dawn  of  Christianity  cried  out  with  a  new  meaning,  "  Repent, 
the  kingdom  of  heaven  is  at  hand."  So  Peter  at  Pentecost, 
standing  in  the  shadow  of  the  cross,  and   beside   the  open 


96 

grave  of  Christ,  could  say  to  men  with  such  result  as  fol- 
lowed, "Repent  and  be  baptized  every  one  of  you  for  the 
remission  of  sins."  And  so  Paul  at  Athens,  proclaiming  a 
risen  Christ  could  declare  that  the  times  of  ignorance  God 
had  overlooked,  but  now  he  commandeth  all  men  every- 
where to  repent.  We  are  so  familiar  with  the  call  to  repent- 
ance that  we  forget  that  it  assumes  the  gospel.  Herein  lay 
the  irrelevancy  of  all  the  passages  quoted  by  Dr.  Dexter  from 
the  sermons  of  the  early  New  England  divines  to  prove  their 
opinion  upon  the  question  of  a  future  probation.  They  all 
assumed  that  their  hearers  had  now  the  full  opportunity  of 
accepting  Christ  and  therefore  there  would  be  no  other  and 
better  one,  an  inference  with  which  we  are  in  full  agree- 
ment. Herein  too  lay  the  significance  of  the  sermon  in- 
troduced by  Dr.  Wellman  into  his  argument,  in  which  he 
tried  to  show  how  those  who  believed  in  the  possibilities  of 
men  in  Christ  because  of  their  vital  relation  to  him  even  in 
their  sin,  would  preach  to  sinners.  Listening  to  that  sermon, 
even  under  its  unsympathetic  statement  of  the  idea,  I  forgot 
for  the  time  the  argument,  I  became  indifferent  to  the  irony, 
I  felt  the  truth.  So  I  try  to  teach  men  to  preach  Christ  to 
their  fellow-men  so  that  they  can  say  to  them,  now,  and  now 
only,  is  the  accepted  time ;  for  now,  you  have  your  possibili- 
ties in  Christ ;  now  your  decision  is  full  and  final. 

Now  am  I  right  or  am  I  wrong  in  this  conception  of  the 
Creed  as  related  to  preaching?  I  ask  your  opinion.  I  want 
to  know  in  some  authoritative  way  whether  or  no  this  is 
heterodoxy.  I  ask  for  no  charitable  construction  of  the 
Creed  in  any  other  than  the  legal  sense  of  the  term.  I  want 
to  know  what  its  working  construction  is.  I  want  to  know 
how  I  am  to  handle  the  creed  in  my  endeavor  to  train  men 
to  preach  the  truth,  whether  they  are  dealing  with  error,  or 
whether  they  are  dealing  with  the  glorious  imperatives  of  the 
gospel. 

I  conclude  this  personal  statement  with  a  brief  reference 
to  the  changes  which  have  taken  place  since  my  official  con- 
nection with  the  Seminary.  I  came  to  Andover  in  1880. 
That  was    two  years  before  the  present  disturbance.     My 


97 

term  of  service  covers  the  transition  from  what  is  called  the 
old  to  what  is  called  the  new.  The  term  new  departure  is 
not  our  term.  Two  years  before  the  election  of  Dr.  Newman 
Smyth  to  the  chair  of  Theology,  that  is  in  the  year  1880, 
the  class  entering  the  Seminary  numbered  ten.  The  year 
following,  1881,  the  entering  class  numbered  live.  If  charges 
are  brought  against  the  present  administration  of  Andover, 
tending  to  show  its  decline,  let  care  be  taken  in  the  matter 
of  dates.  To-day  there  are  forty-eight  undergraduate  stu- 
dents at  Andover,  —  this  does  not  include  fourth  year  men  or 
fellows  —  giving  the  Seminary  the  second  place  in  numbers 
among  the  four  Congregational  Seminaries  of  New  England 
and  if  I  am  not  mistaken  the  second  place  among  the  Con- 
gregational Seminaries  in  the  country  in  the  number  of 
regular  students.  And  during  these  years  of  suspicion  and 
opposition  the  graduates  of  the  Seminary  have  passed  with- 
out exception  into  the  service  of  the  churches.  They  all  fill 
honored  pastorates  in  New  England  and  throughout  the 
country.  Meanwhile  I  know  of  no  function  of  the  Seminary 
which  has  been  reduced.  I  know  of  no  relation  to  the 
churches  which  has  been  broken,  not  even  that  relation 
which  allows  the  return  to  the  Seminary  of  gifts  of  money. 
During  the  past  year  not  less  than  eighty  thousand  dollars 
have  been  added  intelligently  to  the  funds  of  the  Seminary. 
Andover  is  furnishing  to-day  as  always  men  for  the  estab- 
lished pastorates,  for  arduous  and  difficult  service  on  the 
frontier ;  she  has  her  quota  of  men  knocking  and  in  waiting 
at  the  doors  of  the  American  Board.  So  far  as  I  can  dis- 
cover as  an  alumnus  the  Andover  that  is,  is  in  spirit  and  in 
method  and  in  result  the  Andover  that  was.  The  true  con- 
tinuity, the  real  succession  is  there,  and  there  along  the  line 
of  present  development,  I  most  assuredly  believe  that  the 
true  continuity,  the  real  succession  will  give,  under  any  and 
all  possible  contingencies,  the  Andover  of  the  future.  If  I 
did  not  believe  this  in  the  loyalty  of  my  heart  as  an  alumnus 
of  the  Seminary,  I  should  not  for  a  moment  remain  in  its 
official  service.  Indeed  Mr.  President  I  may  say  without 
affectation  that  as  this  hearing  has  proceeded  my  chief  interest 


98 

and  concern  has  changed.  I  came  here  anxious  to  vindicate 
my  rights  in  my  present  holding  of  truth  under  the  Creed 
of  the  Seminary.  It  is  for  you  to  judge  whether  the  vindi- 
cation has  been  made.  But  my  greater  anxiety  in  your 
decision  is  for  the  Seminary  itself.  A  right  is  a  right  in 
respect  to  any  man  and  his  work.  But  what  are  the  inter- 
ests of  five  men  as  compared  with  the  interests  of  an  institu- 
tion. I  agree  with  the  position  of  the  complainants  which 
subordinates  our  personal  and  professorial  interests  to  those 
which  are  higher.  I  have  asked  for  no  charitable  construc- 
tion of  the  Creed  in  behalf  of  our  teachings.  I  ask  for  no 
kind  of  charity  in  dealing  with  our  personal  interests. 

But  for  the  Seminary  my  thought  is  more  urgent.  Under- 
neath any  rights  which  inhere  in  my  professorship,  I  am 
conscious  of  the  assertion  of  the  deeper  and  inalienable  rights 
which  belong  to  me  as  an  alumnus  of  Andover,  and  as  such 
I  venture  to  ask  in  my  anxiety  —  what  is  to  be  its  future  ? 
I  ask  it  in  the  name  of  its  past.  Who  has  the  right  to  affirm 
of  the  past  of  any  time  that  it  is  conservative  and  not  pro- 
gressive? Who  has  the  right  to  say  this  of  Andover  in  the 
light  of  its  history  ?  The  men  who  founded  Andover  builded 
well,  consciously  well,  but  they  builded  even  better  than  they 
knew,  and  I  believe  that  they  to-day  rejoice  that  they  builded 
better  than  they  knew  —  that  the  principles  which  they  forced 
into  the  Creed  were  wider  and  more  far  reaching  than  they 
dared  to  conceive. 

I  ask  in  the  name  of  a  great  number  of  living  and  work- 
ing alumni,  many  of  whom  are  in  intellectual  sympathy 
with  its  current  theology,  and  many  more  in  sympathy  with 
its  working  principles  and  its  general  position. 

I  ask  in  the  name  of  the  natural  constituency  of  the 
Seminary,  among  the  young  men  in  our  colleges  and  churches, 
whose  decision  touching  Andover  awaits  your  decision. 

And  yet,  even  in  behalf  of  these  interests,  no  more  than 
in  behalf  of  my  own,  do  I  dare  to  ask  for  charity;  for  I 
have  learned  to  believe  that  when  great  interests  are  at  issue 
between  man  and  man,  and  the  hearts  of  men  are  quick, 
the  fairest  thing  on  the  face  of  the  earth  in  the  eyes  of 
all,  is  justice  unadorned. 


STATEMENT  OF   PROFESSOR   GEORGE   HARRIS. 


May  it  please  your  Reverend  and  Honorable  Body  : 

My  object  in  addressing  3^011  is  to  explain  in  part  my 
reasons  for  assenting  to  the  Seminary  Creed  when  I  was 
inaugurated  in  1883,  with  my  reasons  for  continuing  to  assent 
to  it,  and  to  add  a  correction  of  certain  misapprehensions 
which  appear  to  exist  relative  to  the  doctrine  of  Atonement 
as  it  is  discussed  in  Progressive  Orthodoxy.  As  I  first  took 
the  Creed  after  the  present  theological  controversy  began 
my  relation  to  it  was  assumed  at  the  outset  in  the  full  light 
of  nearly  all  the  objections  which  have  been  urged  during 
this  hearing. 

When  it  was  proposed  to  me  to  become  Abbot  Professor 
of  Christian  Theology  in  the  Seminary,  I  was  engaged  in 
the  active  duties  of  the  pastorate  in  Providence  and  had  no 
intention  of  changing  either  the  form  or  the  place  of  my 
Christian  service.  I  was  acquainted  with  the  issues  which 
had  been  raised  by  the  election  of  Rev.  Newman  Smyth  to 
the  same  professorship,  but  had  not  made  a  thorough  exam- 
ination of  the  Andover  Creed.  Before  the  Trustees  took 
action  I  studied  the  Creed  and  Statutes  with  more  careful- 
ness. When  I  began  this  study  I  was  by  no  means  confident 
that  I  could  give  a  sincere  assent  to  them  nor  was  I  certain 
that  I  could  subscribe  to  the  Westminster  Shorter  Catechism 
with  the  qualifications  of  the  Creed,  as  the  Abbot  Professor 
is  required  to  do.  My  attention  was  first  given  to  the  doc- 
trines which  are  now  considered  most  important  and  concern- 
ing which  wide  differences  of  opinion  prevail,  —  the  doctrines 
of  the  Bible,  the  Person  and  Work  of  Christ,  and  Escha- 


100 

tology.  I  was  at  once  favorably  impressed  with  the  breadth 
of  statement  on  these  doctrines.  Great  facts  are  given  but 
no  specific  theories  are  proposed.  For  example  I  found  that 
the  Creed  goes  no  farther  than  to  indicate  the  religious  func- 
tion of  the  Bible  and  that  it  distinguishes  the  Word  of  God 
from  the  Scriptures  or  writings  which  contain  it.  Although 
I  held  that  every  part  of  the  Scriptures  in  connection  with  the 
whole  is  vitally  related  to  the  Divine  Revelation  it  conveys, 
yet  it  was  at  once  evident  that  no  theory  of  a  verbally  in- 
spired or  of  an  infallible  Book  free  from  imperfections  in  every 
respect  could  be  required.  The  Word  of  God  is  not  the  very 
same  thing  with  the  words  of  men  into  which  it  has  been  ex- 
pressed. I  saw  that  the  doctrine  of  the  Creed  is  identical  with 
the  doctrine  of  Paul  as  stated  to  Timothy.  "  Every  Scripture 
inspired  of  God  is  also  profitable  for  teaching,  for  reproof,  for 
correction,  for  instruction  which  is  in  righteousness ;  that 
the  man  of  God  may  be  complete,  furnished  completely  unto 
every  good  work."  The  field  of  fact  is  left  open  to  inquiry 
in  order  that  investigation  may  discover  the  relation  of  divine 
and  human  elements  in  the  Sacred  Scriptures. 

The  doctrine  of  the  Person  of  Christ  I  found  expressed  in 
the  well-known  and  generally  accepted  statement  of  the 
Symbol  of  Chalcedon  than  which  a  better  formula  has  not 
been  framed  concerning  the  fact  of  the  union  of  two  natures 
in  one  person.  The  union  of  divine  and  human  in  Christ  is 
generally  admitted  to  present  the  most  difficult  problem  of 
theology,  and  when  I  heard  one  of  the  complainants  argu- 
ing that  problem  as  against  our  views  in  thirteen  propositions 
I  entertained  for  the  moment  the  pious  wish  of  one  of  the 
scholars  of  the  Reformation  who  near  the  end  of  his  life  said 
that  he  should  welcome  a  change  of  worlds  for  two  reasons, 
one  that  he  might  comprehend  the  union  of  the  two  natures, 
the  other  that  he  might  be  delivered,  to  use  his  very  lan- 
guage, from  the  rabies  theologorum. 

The  doctrine  of  Atonement  I  could  not  fail  to  see  is  stated 
in  a  general  form  and  with  complete  reserve  as  to  what  is 
called  the  philosophy  of  Atonement.  It  emphasizes  the  fact, 
the  object,  and  the  extent  of  Atonement  made  by  the  suffer- 


101 

ings  and  death  of  Christ,  but  the  only  approach  to  a  theory  is 
the  declaration  that  Christ  exercised  the  priestly  office. 

The  doctrine  of  Eschatology,  as  stated  in  the  Creed 
presented  no  difficulty  except  that  the  language  in  which 
the  fate  of  the  wicked  is  described  I  found  to  be  somewhat 
more  expressive  of  physical  suffering  than  other  Scriptural 
language  which  I  myself  should  have  selected  to  express  the 
same  belief;  namely,  the  final  and  irreversible  doom  of  those 
who  are  incorrigibly  wicked.  .1  assumed  that  the  framers  of 
the  Creed  held  opinions  on  that  subject  somewhat  more  ma- 
terialistic than  the  opinions  which  are  held  at  present.  At 
that  time,  as  I  have  already  stated  in  my  testimony,  I  had 
reached  no  settled  conclusion  concerning  God's  dealing  with 
those  to  whom  the  gospel  is  not  presented.  It  then  seemed 
to  me  that  the  Scriptures  touch  that  question  only  inciden- 
tally, and  that  they  give  no  unmistakable  utterance.  I  had,  as 
Bushnell  used  to  put  it,  hung  the  question  up  in  my  mind.  I 
did  not,  however,  discover  that  the  Creed  required  one  to 
hold  the  distinct  opinion  that  no  person  who  is  deprived  in 
this  life  of  the  ordinary  means  of  grace  can  have  any  other 
opportunity  of  salvation.  The  Creed  seemed  to  me  to  be 
treating  Eschatology  and  all  other  doctrines  on  the  basis  of  a 
received  gospel  and  of  man's  duty  and  destiny  in  view  of  the 
fact  that  he  has  the  gospel.  Although  1  had  not  then  ac- 
cepted the  opinion  for  which  I  am  now  blamed  I  did  not  un- 
derstand that  I  must  definitely  reject  it.  One,  that  is,  could 
at  least  be  Agnostic  concerning  the  intermediate  state  of  those 
who  do  not  have  the  gospel,  since  the  Creed  says  nothing 
about  it.  If  I  had  then  known  what  I  now  understand  to  be 
the  opinion  of  my  colleague  in  the  Stone  professorship,  which 
amounts  to  a  confession  of  ignorance  on  the  subject,  I  should 
not  have  supposed  that  the  Creed  requires  him  to  go  farther 
than  that.  If  the  Creed  obliges  one  to  hold  an  absolute 
and  exhaustive  negative  concerning  God's  dealing  with 
heathen  nations  I  could  not  have  assented  to  it,  nor  could  I 
now.  I  understand  my  accusers  to  maintain  that  the  Creed 
imposes  the  opinion  that  for  all  human  beings  without  any 
exception  whatever  there  is  no  opportunity  of  salvation  but 


102 

that  which  is  given  in  the  earthly  life.  I  should  not  have 
dreamed  of  ascertaining  the  relation  of  the  Creed  to  the 
possibility  of  Christian  probation  for  the  heathen  by  surmising 
what  the  Founders  ivould  have  thought  if  the  question  had 
been  presented  to  them.  I  think  there  would  have  been  a 
variety  of  answers,  and  that  some  of  them  would  have  said 
they  did  not  know.  I  supposed  that  the  only  proper  course 
is  to  bring  given  opinions  concerning  which  the  Creed  is 
silent  into  the  light  of  the  principles  or  essential  doctrines  of 
the  Creed,  and  in  such  a  relation  to  reach,  if  it  were  possible, 
a  conclusion.  I  turned  to  the  Catechism,  which  as  some  have 
held,  dominates  the  Creed,  and  discovered  that  it  is  entirely 
silent  concerning  the  fate  of  the  wicked,  even  of  those  who  do 
have  the  gospel.  I  also  believed,  as  I  subsequently  declared  to 
the  Visitors,  that  under  the  Creed  there  is  libert}'  to  hold  the 
opinion  that  those  who  do  not  have  the  gospel  in  this  life  may 
have  it  in  the  life  to  come.  I  was  also  aware  that  their  decis- 
ion in  the  case  of  Rev.  Newman  Smyth  covered  this  opinion- 
I  had  never  believed  that  any  man  has  a  second  probation 
under  the  gospel,  and  in  this  respect  agreed  heartily  with  the 
opinions  of  the  Founders — as  I  do  now. 

I  then  turned  to  other  portions  of  the  Creed  concerning 
original  sin,  election,  natural  ability,  the  covenants,  etc.  It 
was  not  till  then  that  difficulties  arose.  As  a  theory  of  moral 
heredity  the  doctrine  of  Federal  Headship  was  repugnant  to 
me.  The  distinctions  of  natural  and  moral  ability  seemed  to 
me  metaphysical  refinements,  to  which  I  did  not  care  to  com- 
mit myself,  although  my  judgment  of  them  is  now  more  favor- 
able. These  and  kindred  clauses  pertaining  to  man,  and  not 
the  clauses  which  embody  revealed  truth  concerning  God, 
were  to  me  the  defective  portions  of  the  Creed.  It  was  not 
the  theology,  but  the  psychology  and  anthropology  of  the 
Creed  before  which  I  hesitated.  I  remembered  indeed  that  the 
only  instructor  in  theology  I  ever  had,  my  distinguished  pred- 
ecessor in  the  Abbot  professorship,  who,  as  I  knew,  had  had 
long  practice  in  taking  this  very  Creed,  I  remembered  that  he 
poured  derision  and  ridicule  on  the  doctrine  of  Federal  Head- 
ship, and  that  he  declared  the  covenants  of  grace  and  redemp- 


103 

tion  to  be  figurative  and  poetical  expressions,  in  order  to 
reach  the  conclusion  that  no  objection  could  be  made  against 
a  figure  of  speech.  Still,  I  must  decide  for  myself,  and  at 
length  I  reached  the  conclusion  of  common  sense,  that  these 
statements  stand  for  essential  facts  and  doctrines ;  that  Fed- 
eral Headship  signifies  the  doctrine  of  depravity  and  moral 
heredity  as  including  the  entire  race,  that  theories  of  ability 
and  inability  signify  man's  responsibility  and  opportunity 
under  the  gospel,  that  the  doctrine  of  election  signifies  that 
the  individual's  confidence  of  salvation  does  not  rest  merely 
on  his  own  purpose  of  yesterday,  and  that  it  is  certain  God 
will  redeem  to  himself  a  holy  people  ;  and  all  of  these  opin- 
ions were  real  to  me.  That  is  to  say,  I  accepted  the  sub- 
stance of  doctrine  represented  by  these  statements,  a 
substance  which  in  several  cases  was  to  me  so  vital  and  solid, 
that  in  comparison  the  statements  of  the  Creed  seemed  to  be 
but  the  shadow.  I  felt,  sir,  as  it  is  said  some  of  the  Puritans 
who  lived  before  the  Westminster  Confession  was  framed  felt 
with  regard  to  the  phrases  of  the  thirty-nine  articles  which 
they  considered  too  lax,  that  I  could  take  these  inadequate 
statements  of  the  Creed  with  " a  godly  interpretation."  How- 
ever, I  could  not  be  entirely  satisfied  without  submitting  my 
difficulties  to  the  Board  of  Visitors,  and  having  the  benefit 
of  their  advice  and  judgment.  The  result  was  an  agreement 
that  the  Cree'd  should  be  taken  as  expressing  substantially 
the  system  of  truth  taught  in  the  Holy  Scriptures. 

It  is  noticeable,  gentlemen,  that  the  charges  most  urgently 
pressed  by  the  complainants  do  not  touch  opinions  which  are 
covered  by  specific  and  clear  statements  of  the  Creed,  but  only 
opinions  concerning  doctrines  which  the  Creed  introduces  in 
the  most  general  terms.  The  weight  of  this  accusation  bears 
on  our  views  of  the  Bible,  Atonement,  and  Eschatology 
concerning  which  the  Creed  is  indefinite  and  reserved.  At 
other  points  it  would  have  been  much  easier  to  argue  dis- 
agreement. That  is  to  say,  the  doctrines  selected  are  those 
which  happen  just  at  present  to  be  most  in  dispute,  and  it  is 
evident  we  are  opposed  not  so  much  because  on  these  doc- 
trines we  are  antagonistic  to  the  Creed,  but  rather  because 


104 

our  opinions  differ  from  the  opinions  of  our  accusers.     Such 
difference  we  do  not  for  a  moment  deny. 

After  my  confirmation  by  your  Board,  the  Creed  passed 
almost  entirely  out  of  my  thoughts.  I  remained  through 
the  winter  with  my  parish,  and  at  the  end  of  four  months 
was  dismissed  b}r  Council.  Then  followed  the  preparation 
of  an  Inaugural  address,  the  fitting  up  of  a  house  at  Andover, 
and  also  a  growing  and  appalling  sense  of  what  I  had  under- 
taken as  a  teacher  of  Christian  theology.  I  confess  to  you, 
sir,  that  at  times  I  was  profoundly  thankful  that  the  Seminary 
was  reduced  in  numbers  and  that  my  first  year's  course 
would  be  heard  by  only  a  handful  of  students. 

In  addition  to  the  heavy  burdens  which,  as  I  often  felt,  I 
had  unwisely  assumed,  I  was  made  aware  at  the  time  of  my 
inauguration  of  conditions  which  would  make  my  work  still 
more  arduous.  It  then  appeared,  in  the  discussions  of  the 
only  public  and  regularly  called  meeting  of  the  Alumni 
which  within  the  last  four  years  has  considered  the  theologi- 
cal status  of  the  Seminary,  that  a  determined  opposition  was 
to  be  expected.  It  was  not  known  that  any  of  the  new 
professors,  or  indeed  that  any  member  of  the  entire  faculty, 
save  one,  entertained  hope  for  the  unevangelized  heathen. 
But  we  were  not  even  to  have  a  fair  opportunity  to  prove 
ourselves.  The  impressions  I  then  received  from  intimations 
and  public  threats  have  been  abundantly  verified.  There 
have  been  petty  insinuations,  and  constructions  offered  which 
if  they  were  not  misrepresentations  were  astonishing  mis- 
understandings. The  Seminary  was  few  in  numbers  as  we 
took  it  from  a  former  administration,  and  we  had  no  expecta- 
tion, with  so  many  untried  teachers,  of  large  additions  at  the 
outset,  yet  a  journal  edited  by  one  of  the  complainants  con- 
descended to  make  a  calculation  which  by  reckoning  in 
lecturers,  retired  professors,  and  even  the  librarian,  showed 
that  to  each  instructor  in  Andover  Seminary  there  was 
in  attendance  one  student  and  five-sevenths  of  a  student. 
Although  our  growth  has  not  been  rapid,  for  no  efforts  have 
been  spared  publicly  or  privately  to  turn  students  away  from 
us,  similar  calculations  were  not  made  last  year,  nor  has  there 


105 

been  any  intimation  from  that  quarter  of  the  considerable 
growth  which  the  Seminary  has  had.  I  have  been  tempted, 
and  have  sometimes  yielded  to  the  temptation,  to  review 
every  sentence  of  mine  which  would  be  printed  to  ascertain 
if  by  any  possibility  the  opponents  of  the  Seminary  could 
construe  it  to  our  disadvantage.  I  have  not  dared  at  times 
(I  may  have  been  too  timid)  to  trust  an  article  as  a  whole, 
and  have  modified  or  omitted  sentences  which  had,  as  I 
thought,  some  point,  lest  advantage  should  be  taken  of  a  turn 
of  expression.  Possibly  some  of  the  vagueness  of  which  my 
accusers  complain  may  be  due  to  such  revisions. 

I  mention  all  this  as  part  of  my  experience  in  the  Seminary, 
and  to  remind  you  that  opposition  did  not  begin  with  the 
appearance  of  Progressive  Orthodoxy  in  1885,  nor  with 
articles  in  the  "  Andover  Review"  for  April  and  May  1886. 

During  the  last  five  months  I  have  become  better  in- 
formed in  respect  to  the  circumstances  under  which  the 
Seminary  Creed  was  formulated,  and  as  must  be  true  of  all 
in  attendance,  I  also  have  learned  during  the  progress  of 
this  hearing  not  a  little  that  was  not  known  before.  I  have 
learned  from  the  paper  read  Friday  by  Dr.  Dexter,  or  rather 
have  had  new  illustrations  of  the  fact,  that  the  founders  had 
in  view  the  condition  and  destiny  of  men  in  Christendom, 
under  the  gospel.  I  also  judge  from  that  paper  that  the  motive 
of  fear  was  then  worked  in  too  large  as  it  now  is  worked,  ac- 
cording to  my  judgment,  in  too  small  proportion.  It  has 
also  been  made  clear  to  me  that  the  original  union  included 
parties  which  differed  asi  widely  as  our  accusers  differ  from 
ourselves.  The  difference  was  perhaps  even  wider,  for  univer- 
sality of  Atonement  as  against  limitation,  and  free  agency  as 
against  inability  meant  at  the  time  and  still  mean  contrasts  as 
great  as  any  which  exist  in  this  present  controversy.  I  have 
learned  that  the  founders  and  their  friends  drove  in  chaises, 
wrote  precisely  worded  letters,  were  not  above  some  log- 
rolling, tried  to  influence  one  man  through  another  man,  to 
get  at  merchants  of  Newburyport  through  their  minister, 
that  they  suspected  the  motives  of  opponents  and  used  rather 
harsh  language  towards  them,  that  they  were  men  of  like  pas- 


10G 

sions  with  ourselves,  that  there  was  more  of  what  we  call 
human  nature  in  them  than  in  their  Creed,  but  also  that 
they  were  eager  for  union  and  were  willing  to  make  proper 
concessions,  that  they  had  for  their  time  remarkable  breadth 
of  view,  above  all  that  they  had  the  courage  to  put  vital 
principles,  of  the  consequences  of  which  they  were  not  afraid, 
into  their  union  creed.  They  did  not,  I  believe,  understand 
how  much  is  involved  in  the  universality  of  the  person  and 
atonement  of  Christ,  nor  in  the  freedom  and  rationality  of 
man  in  accordance  with  which  he  is  saved  or  lost.  But  they 
ventured  out.  Those  principles  and  doctrines  of  revelation 
gained  a  place  in  the  Creed.  They  did  not  know,  we  do  not 
know,  how  large  results  are  involved  in  those  truths  of 
Divine  revelation.  And  the  fact  has  been  that  while  some  of 
their  statements  about  man  have  lost  in  importance,  till  they 
seem  to  us  an  almost  outgrown  metaphysic  and  ethic,  the  re- 
vealed truths  concerning  God  and  his  ways  with  man,  which 
are  higher  than  our  thoughts,  have  enlarged  in  the  appre- 
hension of  their  descendants  and  are  to  enlarge  more  and 
more  by  reverent  study  of  God's  works  in  creation,  providence 
and  redemption,  by  clearer  knowledge  of  the  Bible,  and  by 
the  deepening  spiritual  experience  which  believers  gain  in 
their  "  minds  and  hearts." 

I  have  also  examined  the  relation  of  Creed  and  Catechism, 
a  relation  in  which  I  am  the  only  living  person  who  has  a 
directly  responsible  interest,  and  have  come  to  a  conclusion 
which  I  believe  to  have  been  expressed  by  my  predecessor, 
that  in  the  case  of  the  Abbot  Professor  a  legal  reference  to 
the  Catechism  is  appropriate,  but  that  the  Creed  determines 
the  sense  in  which  those  portions  of  the  Catechism  shall  be 
taken  which  are  found  in  both  instruments.  I  am  not  able 
to  understand  the  satisfaction  my  colleagues  on  the  Associate 
foundation  take  in  their  freedom  from  the  Catechism,  even  as 
interpreted  by  the  Creed,  for  with  the  exception  of  the  doc- 
trine of  limited  atonement,  which  the  Creed  corrects,  I  con- 
sider the  Westminster  Catechism,  as  a  doctrinal  formulary, 
superior  to  the  Andover  Creed. 

One  point  has  perhaps  been  overlooked  by  the  complainants. 


107 

The  Catechism  teaches  that  the  world  was  made  in  the  space 
of  six  days.  There  is  no  doubt  in  my  mind  that  the  West- 
minster Divines  meant  by  that  144  hours.  The  statement  is 
not  modified  by  the  Creed.  But  I  do  not  believe  that  the 
world  was  created  in  six  solar  days.  I  believe  that  the  uni- 
verse was  created  in  no  time.  As  Augustine  said,  the  world 
was  not  created  in  tempore,  but  cum  tempore.  Or,  if  by 
creation  is  meant  the  time  from  the  appearance  of  matter  to 
the  appearance  of  man,  I  should  prefer  to  assume  millions 
rather  than  even  thousands  of  years.  Nor  have  we  yet  done 
with  the  consequences  which  come  in  with  a  recognition  of  the 
time  required  for  the  evolution  of  the  existing  order,  since 
this  change  of  opinion  may  prove  to  involve  essential  doc- 
trines. 

We  may  expect  our  accusers  next  to  turn  their  atten- 
tion to  the  Presbyterian  body,  for  the  clergymen  and  theo- 
logical professors  of  that  denomination  take  the  Catechism 
without  the  modifications  of  a  later  Creed,  yet  many  of  them 
hold  to  the  universality  of  atonement. 

On  the  whole,  more  careful  study  of  the  origin  of  the 
Creed,  to  which  this  trial  has  invited  me  has  not  substantially 
changed  my  understanding  of  it.  Neither  have  my  opinions 
substantially  changed.  I  have  not,  let  me  hope,  stopped 
thinking,  even  if  premiums  have  been  offered  to  encourage 
cessation  of  thought.  Neither,  let  me  also  hope,  have  I 
ceased  to  receive  the  light  which  God  gives  to  those  who 
honestly  seek  the  truth.  My  changes  of  doctrinal  view  have 
been  in  respect  to  proportion,  emphasis  and  clearness.  I  do 
find  it  easier  to  reconcile  the  significance  and  scope  of  atone- 
ment with  the  opinion  that  the  knowledge  of  it  will  be  given 
to  all  men  before  the  final  judgment  than  with  the  opinion 
that  the  light  of  nature  is  essentially  the  knowledge  of  Christ, 
or  with  the  opinion  that  all  knowledge  of  God  in  Christ,  ex- 
cept that  which  is  given  in  this  life,  is  withheld  from  the 
perishing  heathen.  My  difficulty,  sir,  is  with  the  alterna- 
tives. I  only  say  that  upon  the  hypothesis  which  I  enter- 
tain some  serious  objections  disappear,  and  that  it  harmonizes 
certain  essential  doctrines  of  the  gospel  with  the  Providence 


108 

of  God,  but  that  it  is  of  secondary  rather  than  primary  value, 
in  the  sense  that  it  is  an  inference  from  essential  doctrines 
rather  than  itself  an  essential  doctrine.  I  would  also  say  that 
if  the  Creed  requires  me  to  hold  definitely  that  no  member  of 
the  unevangelized  nations  has  other  knowledge  of  God  for  his 
salvation  than  that  which  he  gains  in  this  life,  I  desire  to  be 
emancipated  from  such  a  creed  at  the  earliest  possible  mo- 
ment. But  I  do  not  interpret  your  former  decision  as  shut- 
ting one  up  to  such  a  conclusion.  I  understand  that  the 
Creed  requires  no  more  than  the  essentials  of  faith  as  given 
in  other  evangelical  symbols.  In  our  own  denomination, 
council  after  council  has  decided  that  the  opinion  I  hold  on 
the  probation  of  the  heathen  does  not  override  any  essential 
article  of  faith. 

The  most  serious  charge  which  has  been  brought  against 
me  is  in  my  judgment  to  my  opinions  on  the  Atonement. 
The  gospel  in  its  very  essence  is  the  redemption  of  sinful 
man  through  Jesus  Christ,  and  to  be  in  error  concerning  it  is 
more  reprehensible  than  to  believe  that  the  Bible  contains  some 
blemishes  incidental  to  the  human  media  through  which 
its  truth  was  given,  or  to  hold  a  certain  opinion  concerning 
God's  grace  to  the  heathen.  I  do  not  propose  to  discuss  the 
doctrine  but  to  correct  some  misapprehensions.  As  I  listened 
to  the  paper  which  was  devoted  chiefly  to  that  topic,  I  per- 
ceived that  while  it  condemned  my  view  it  indicated  the 
view,  and  apparently  the  only  view  which  the  writer  consid- 
ers correct,  or  tenable  under  the  Creed.  I  observed  that  he 
understands  the  Creed  to  be  committed  to  the  so-called  gov 
ernmental  theory  of  Atonement.  As  the  reading  proceeded, 
the  ideas  presented,  the  expressions  used,  the  turns  given  to 
phrases,  the  repetition  of  favorite  words  were  such  that  if  the 
voice  had  not  been  different  and  I  had  closed  my  eyes  I  should 
have  believed  myself  to  be  back  again  where  I  was  nearly 
a  score  of  years  ago  in  the  middle  class  lecture-room  at  An- 
dover  listening  to  the  Abbot  Professor  of  Theology  as  he 
gave  his  interesting  expositions  of  the  Grotian  theory  of 
Atonement.  Now  I  believe  that  theory  to  be  permissible 
under  the  Creed,  although  to  my  thinking,  since  it  finds  the 


109 

principal  effect  of  Atonement  in  the  exhibition  it  makes  to 
sinners  and  to  the  universe  of  God's  regard  for  his  law,  it  is 
in  the  last  analysis,  a  moral  influence  theory. 

But  I  call  attention  to  the  fact  that  whatever  is  true  in 
the  Grotian  or  governmental  theory  of  Atonement  is  included 
in  the  presentation  of  the  subject  in  Progressive  Orthodox}'. 
It  is  stated  on  page  57  that  the  sufferings  and  death  of 
Christ  realize  God's  hatred  of  sin  and  the  righteous  authority 
of  law,  and  that  therefore  punishment  need  not  be  exacted. 
This  line  of  reflection  was  not  followed  out  because,  as  stated 
in  the  article,  it  is  so  familiar.  "  Its  meaning  is  "  says  the 
book  "that  God  cannot  be  regardless  of  law  nor  indifferent 
to  sin  in  saving  man  from  punishment."  That  is  the  pith 
of  the  governmental  theory.  Then  comes  the  passage  urged 
so  emphatically  in  the  complaint.  "  It  must  be  confessed  that 
it  is  not  clear  how  the  sufferings  and  death  of  Christ  can  be 
substituted  for  the  punishment  of  sin  "  (but  we  have  not 
reached  the  end  of  the  sentence)  "  how  because  Christ  made 
vivid  the  wickedness  of  sin  and  the  righteousness  of  God, 
man  is  therefore  any  the  less  exposed  to  the  consequences  of 
sin.  We  must  go  on  to  the  fact  that  Christ  makes  real  very 
much  more  than  God's  righteous  indignation  against  sin.  The 
punishment  of  sin  does  not  save  men.  It  only  vindicates 
God  and  his  law.  Christ  while  declaring  God's  righteousness 
reveals  God  seeking  men  at  the  cost  of  sacrifice."  It  is  not 
the  error  but  the  inadequacy  of  the  governmental 'theory 
which  is  criticised. 

The  entire  discussion  is  on  the  basis  of  propitiation.  The 
fundamental  position  is  that  because  God  is  reconciled  to 
man  therefore  man  is  forgiven,  rather  than  that  God  for- 
gives by  reason  of  any  thing  that  man  does.  First  God  is 
reconciled,  then  man  repents.  Not  first  man  repents  and 
then  God  is  reconciled.  Much  space  is  given  to  an  inquiry 
concerning  the  offering  which  humanity  makes  to  God  in 
the  sacrifice  of  Christ.  I  quote  —  "  Humanity  may  thus  be 
thought  of  as  offering  something  to  God  of  eminent  value. 
When  Christ  suffers  the  race  suffers.  When  Christ  is  sor- 
rowful the  race  is  sorrowful."     Why  did  Dr.  Wellman's  quo- 


110 

tation  stop  here?  Let  us  go  on.  "Christ  realizes  what  hu- 
manity could  not  realize  for  itself.  The  race  may  be  con- 
ceived as  approaching  God,  and  signifying  its  penitence  by 
pointing  to  Christ,  and  by  giving  expression  in  him  to 
repentance  which  no  words  could  utter."  And  then  with 
but  a  sentence  between  comes  this  statement.  "  The  rep- 
resentative power  which  belongs  to  man  in  his  various  rela- 
tions comes  to  its  perfect  realization  in  Christ.  In  the  fam- 
ily, in  government,  in  business,  in  society,  representative  or 
substitutionary  relations  are  the  rule  not  the  exception. 
Much  more  has  Christ  the  power  perfectly  to  represent  us  or 
to  be  substituted  for  us,  because  there  is  no  point  of  our  real 
life  where  he  is  not  in  contact  with  us." 

But  the  most  singular  part  of  the  objection  is  the  criticism 
made  on  my  belief  in  the  union  of  Christ  with  the  race. 
Because  the  Incarnation,  which  is  the  true  humanity  of 
Christ,  helps  us  to  understand  the  Atonement,  it  is  concluded 
that  Incarnation  has  been  put  in  the  place  of  Atonement. 
The  article  was  endeavoring  to  express  the  opinion  that 
Christ's  union  with  the  race  gives  large  part  of  its  signifi- 
cance to  his  sufferings  and  death.  "  For  verily  not  of  angels 
doth  he  take  hold,  but  he  taketh  hold  of  the  seed  of  Abra- 
ham. Wherefore  it  behooved  him  in  all  things  to  be  made 
like  unto  his  brethren  that  he  might  be  a  merciful  and  faith- 
ful high  priest  in  things  pertaining  to  God  to  make  propitia- 
tion for  the  sins  of  the  people."  The  fact  that  Christ  in  his 
incarnation  became  a  real  man  in  organic  relation  with  the 
human  race  gives  the  most  profound  conception  of  his  Atone- 
ment. It  should  also  be  observed  that  in  the  statement  con- 
cerning incarnation  it  is  perfectly  clear  that  something  other 
is  meant  than  the  completed  union  of  Christ  with  the  believ- 
er. And  this  view  of  Christ's  proper  humanity  is  argued  to 
be  in  opposition  to  the  statement  of  the  Creed  that  Jesus 
Christ  and  he  alone  made  atonement  for  the  sins  of  all  men  ; 
as  if  "  alone  "  means  that  he  has  no  organic  union  with  the 
men  for  whom  he  laid  down  his  life.  This  is  as  complete  a 
reversal  of  an  author's  meaning  as  it  was  ever  my  misfortune 
to  hear.     I  believe  the  framers  of  the  Creed  were  not  desir- 


Ill 

ous  of  propounding  any  theory  of  Atonement  but  of  emphasiz- 
ing its  extent. 

In  a  similar  vein  the  opinions  presented  on  man's  power 
to  repent  were  discussed.  There  is,  in  the  article  cited, 
an  inquiry  concerning  fact,  concerning  man's  real  rather 
than  his  formal  freedom.  The  word  "  cannot "  is  Paul's 
"cannot"  when  he  said,  "I  cannot  do  the  things  which 
I  would."  I  understood  that  the  view  we  are  required  to 
hold  under  the  creed,  in  the  opinion  of  our  accusers,  is  that 
man  does  all  of  his  repenting  by  his  own  unaided  power 
and  that  after  he  has  achieved  a  complete  repentance,  God 
forgives  him  on  account  of  the  sacrifice  of  Christ.  I  had 
supposed  that  man  does  his  sinning  by  his  own  unaided 
power,  but  that  when  it  comes  to  holiness,  especially  that 
radical  choice  in  which  real  repentance  largely  consists  and 
which  is  a  true  turning  to  God,  he  is  to  no  small  degree 
dependent  on  the  Holy  Spirit  of  God  taking  the  things  of 
Christ  and  showing  them  unto  him.  In  that  opinion  I  be- 
lieve I  am  in  most  substantial  accord  with  the  Seminary 
Creed. 

Some  of  these  speculations  to  which  we  have  listened  made 
the  impression  on  me  that  it  is  extremely  difficult  for  what 
may  be  called  the  logical  school  of  evangelical  belief  to  enter 
into  a  sympathetic  appreciation  of  the  beliefs  of  the  spiritual 
school.  I  am  prepared  to  abate  somewhat  the  feeling  that 
our  accusers  and  their  associates  refuse  to  understand  us  as 
we  mean,  for  it  has  been  borne  in  on  me  during  this  hearing 
that  they  probably  are  unable  so  to  understand  us  —  I  do  not 
intend  this  observation  as  a  slur,  but  as  the  statement  of  a 
fact.  I  do  not  deny  that  our  writings  may  sometimes  have 
been  vague.  But  I  am  satisfied  that  the  real  difficulty  lies 
deeper,  and  that  the  two  parties  or  wings  are  separated  some- 
what as  parties  in  the  church  have  been  separated  in  almost 
every  period  of  its  history  —  because  they  approach  truth  from 
opposite  sides,  or  rather  because  the  one  party  approaches 
from  without  on  the  circumference,  the  other  party  from 
within  at  or  near  the  centre.  This  difference  is  partly  con- 
stitutional and  so  cannot  be  avoided.    It  is  a  remark  made  first 


112 

I  think  hy  Schclling,  although  attributed  to  Coleridge,  that 
every  man  as  to  philosophy  is  born  either  a  Platonist  or  Aris- 
totelian. It  is  equalljr  true  that  as  to  theology  some  men 
are  endowed  with  spiritual,  others  more  largely  with  logical 
apprehension.  It  seems  to  me  that  our  opponents  almost 
completely  fail  to  apprehend  that  movement  of  religious 
thought  of  the  last  thirty  years  in  this  and  other  countries 
which  has  been  the  advancing  supremacy  of  the  rational, 
ethical  and  spiritual  habit  of  thought  in  place  of  a  syllogistic, 
logical  and  therefore  rationalizing  habit.  If  I  had  time,  sir, 
I  should  like  to  maintain  that  the  later  developments  of  New 
England  theology  have  been  more  rationalistic  than  any 
theological  movement  since  the  Scholastic  period. 

If  I  may  be  pardoned  a  generalization  without  prefatory 
discussion  I  should  say  that  one  school  of  thought  looks  at 
truth  in  its  objective  forms  as  an  external  thing,  that  the 
re-action  is  mysticism  which  evolves  beliefs  out  of  subjective 
feeling,  and  that  the  newer  school  of  thought  in  our  own  time 
appropriates  external  truth  by  reason  and  spirit  into  living 
faiths,  uniting  the  objective  and  subjective.  Whenever  these 
contrasted  parties  have  been  contemporaneous  it  has  been 
easier  for  the  spiritual  or  intuitional  school  to  comprehend 
the  merely  logical  than  for  the  logical  to  comprehend  the 
spiritual.  Paul  understands  James  better  than  James  under- 
stands Paul.  John  understands  Peter  better  than  Peter  un- 
derstands John.  But  it  is  easier  for  the  logical  than  for  the 
other  school  to  state  its  opinions  clearly  and  to  defend  them 
adroitly.  The  Anselmic  (at  least  as  it  is  frequently  stated) 
and  the  Grotian  theories  of  Atonement,  for  example,  can 
be  put  in  a  nutshell  and  made  intelligible  to  any  one, 
and  that  is  the  trouble  with  them.  They  make  Atone- 
ment a  device  and  do  not  see  that  it  is  God  seeking 
men.  Now,  not  to  dwell  on  this  distinction,  what  is  true 
in  other  denominations  is  true  in  ours  that  one  party  is 
moved  on  by  the  deeper  currents  of  rational  and  spiritual 
impulse  while  the  other  does  not  escape  the  syllogistic  and 
formal  methods  to  which  it  has  become  accustomed. 
These  are  the  differences  which  confront  us  at  this  trial. 


113 

That  which  to  the  one  school  is  the  vital,  organic,  real  rela- 
tion of  Christ  to  men  is  to  the  other  school  mysticism  and 
vagueness. 

The  complainants  will  say  that  this  very  state  of  things  is 
fatal  to  us  for  the  admission  is  made  that  we  are  on  another 
track  than  that  on  which  all  Christians  travelled  at  the  be- 
ginning of  this  century.  But,  on  the  contrary,  I  contend 
that  the  two  parties  which  entered  into  this  union  were 
realty  unlike  in  these  very  respects.  On  the  one  side  were 
mechanical,  artificial  opinions  concerning  imputation,  repre- 
sentation, Divine  Sovereignty ;  on  the  other  side  were  char- 
acter in  freedom,  an  organic  relation  of  man  to  man,  and  of 
man  to  Christ,  and  a  purpose  of  God  running  through  his- 
tory and  revealing  him  as  the  God  of  reason  and  love. 
Then  as  now,  and  as  always,  there  were  the  contrasts  of 
legal  and  spiritual,  external  and  internal,  conservative  and 
progressive,  old  and  new.  Since  the  beginning  there  have 
been  alternations  in  the  teachings  at  Andover.  Much  of  the 
time  both  schools  have  been  represented.  Both  schools  are 
represented  there  to-day.  It  is  doubtless  well  for  the  church 
and  the  world  that  both  types  of  thought  exist  and,  to 
some  degree,  work  harmoniously  side  by  side.  The  fruitful- 
ness  of  the  great  truths  of  revelation  and  of  the  advancing 
kingdom  of  Christ  produces  various  types.  The  doctrinal 
Paul,  the  mystical  John,  the  ecclesiastical  James  are  re- 
flected and  reproduced  in  all  the  great  bodies  of  Christen- 
dom. If  the  tenure  of  either  party  under  the  Creed  is  in 
doubt  it  is  of  that  party  which  to-day  opposes  us,  since  the 
Creed  crowded  hard  on  formal  views  of  the  external  rela- 
tions of  men  to  each  other  and  to  Christ.  We  should  claim 
that  we  are  more  nearly  in  the  line  of  that  vigorous  move- 
ment which  enlarged  the  old  faith  into  new  meaning  and 
scope.  But  the  Seminary  Creed  was  then  and  is  still  a  plat- 
form for  the  two  principal  schools  of  evangelical  faith. 

In  my  judgment  the  particular  opinion  which  is  held  of 
the  opportunities  of  heathen  men  is  of  less  importance  than 
that  there  be  a  firm  hold  on  those  great  postulates  of  the 
gospel's  truth  from  which  we  think  our  theory  properly  pro- 


114 

ceeds.  I  could  not  as  I  have  said  assent  to  the  Creed  if  it 
compels  me  to  maintain  a  negative  concerning  the  unevange- 
lized  nations,  much  less  if  it  shuts  me  up  to  theories  of 
Atonement  and  of  the  Bible  which  have  been  represented 
here  as  alternative  to  my  own.  I  had  supposed  that  Ando- 
ver  with  its  origin,  history  and  traditions  is  a  good  institu- 
tion for  the  advancement  of  Christian  doctrine.  But  if  I 
must  try  to  squeeze  my  opinions  into  any  given  phraseology 
and  to  institute  at  every  point  a  microscopic  comparison  with 
the  Creed  I  should  decline  thus  to  sacrifice  spontaneity,  en- 
thusiasm and  progress.  You  very  well  know  that  none  of  us 
care  for  the  salaries  we  receive  since  every  one  of  us  remains 
at  Andover  at  a  pecuniary  sacrifice,  but  we  do  care  for  the 
advantage  of  our  positions  to  advance  the  gospel  of  Christ, 
and  we  do  care  for  saving  the  institution  to  its  intended  uses. 
It  was  not  established  as  an  asylum  for  orthodoxy,  but  as  a 
school  for  "  increasing  the  number  of  learned  and  able  De- 
fenders of  the  Gospel  of  Christ,  as  well  as  of  orthodox,  pious, 
and  zealous  Ministers  of  the  New  Testament"  ;  for  the  pro- 
duction of  character  and  influence  devoted  to  the  service  of 
Christ. 

I  beg  only,  in  addition,  to  call  your  attention  to  a  phrase  in 
the  Statutes  which  has  been  misapplied.  Emphasis  has  been 
laid  on  the  direction  that  the  Creed  should  never  be  altered 
in  any  particular.  But  it  never  has  been  altered.  It  is  iden- 
tically the  same  as  at  the  first.  The  intention  was  to  prevent 
the  Trustees  or  Visitors  from  repealing  any  clauses,  or  adding 
new  clauses.  There  was  to  be  no  more  legislation  on  that 
subject.  It  was  rather  a  safeguard  against  retrogression  than 
a  bar  to  advance.  The  true  inference  from  that  provision  is 
that  there  is  all  the  more  reason  for  allowing  a  liberal  and 
Christian  construction  of  a  Creed  which  is  itself  forever  un- 
changeable. 


STATEMENT   OF   PROFESSOR   EDWARD  Y.  HINCKS. 


The  work  assigned  to  me  by  the  Trustees  of  Anclover  Sem- 
inary with  the  concurrence  of  your  honorable  Body,  is  that 
of  interpreting  the  Scriptures.  This  task  of  interpretation 
includes  not  only  the  correct  rendering  of  the  words  of 
the  inspired  writers,  but  the  tracing  out  of  their  leading 
thoughts,  and  their  subordinate  ideas  in  their  connection  with 
these.  It  also  includes  such  discussion  of  the  historical  ques- 
tions pertaining  to  the  respective  date,  authorship,  and 
immediate  purpose  of  the  Sacred  writings  as  is  essential  to  a 
correct  understanding  of  their  contents.  In  doing  this  work 
I  have  tried  to  be  true  to  the  province  required  of  me  by  the 
constituted  authorities  of  the  Seminary  "  to  open  and  explain 
the  Scriptures  to  my  pupils  with  integrity  and  faithfulness." 

I  assume  that  an  honest  and  faithful  expositor  will  try  to 
ascertain  as  nearly  as  possible  the  meaning  of  the  language 
used  by  the  inspired  writers,  by  the  use  of  such  grammatical, 
etymological  and  illustrative  helps  as  are  at  his  command. 
I  also  take  for  granted  that  he  will  try  to  enter  into  sym- 
pathy as  far  as  possible  with  the  religious  feelings  and  motives 
which  animated  these  writers.  Having  done  this  he  will, 
I  likewise  assume,  declare  their  thoughts,  according  to  his 
best  understanding  of  them  ;  not  allowing  his  representations 
to  be  modified  by  his  own  prejudices  or  those  of  others.  Such 
unbiassed  interpretation  I  have  tried  to  give  to  those  of  the 
Scriptures  which  I  have  had  occasion  to  expound.  In  deciding 
upon  the  questions  involving  facts  relating  to  these  Scriptures, 
I  have  acted  upon  the  principle,  that  the  laws  which  govern 
historical  research  in  one  field  must  govern  it  in  every  field ; 


116 

and  that  problems  for  which  revelation  does  not  furnish  means 
of  solution  must  be  solved  by  strictly  historical  methods. 

At  the  same  time  these  principles  of  interpretation  and 
research  have  been  employed  under  the  avowed  conviction 
that  the  Scriptures  are  a  supernatural^  given  source  of  spirit- 
ual enlightenment  and  carry  the  absolute  authority  of  the 
Divine  Redeemer.  I  have  endeavored  to  show  that  the  divine 
communications  made  to  our  Lord  and  his  apostles,  and  those 
given  to  the  ancient  prophets  have  passed  over  into  them  and 
make  them  the  prime  source  of  religious  knowledge,  and 
the  final  test  of  Christian  belief. 

If  I  have  not  claimed  for  them  perfect  accuracy  in  all 
statements  lying  outside  of  the  sphere  of  religious  truth,  and 
if  I  have  assigned  to  them  functions  of  varying  value  in  reveal- 
ing God's  character  and  ways,  it  is  because  this  is  necessarily 
involved  in  showing  the  connection  with  Christ  in  the  light 
of  which  alone  their  authority  can  be  appreciated  and  their 
meaning  understood.  Since  God's  revelation  to  man  centres 
in  Him,  all  parts  of  that  revelation  must  be  seen  as  related  to 
that  centre  to  be  understood.  This  implies  the  historical 
study  of  Scripture,  its  examination  in  the  light  of  contem- 
poraneous facts  and  events.  Such  examination  implies  of 
course  the  faithful  use  of  historical  methods  and  the  honest 
recognition  of  their  results.  A  firm  conviction  that  the 
Scriptures  contain  the  religious  conceptions  of  Christ  and  his 
apostles  forbids  any  shrinking  from  such  candid  research. 
The  wish  to  keep  that  conviction  fresh  is  an  unceasing  stim- 
ulus to  pursue  it.  I  may  remind  yon  that  to  this  part  of  the 
work  of  a  Biblical  teacher  in  Andover  Seminary  great  impor- 
tance was  attached  by  its  Founders  as  appears  from  Article  VI. 
of  the  original  constitution,  which  I  beg  permission  to  read. 

Article  VI.  Under  the  head  of  Sacred  Literature  shall  be 
included  Lectures  on  the  formation,  preservation  and  trans- 
mission of  the  Sacred  Volume;  on  the  languages  in  which 
the  Bible  was  originally  written  ;  on  the  Septuagint  version 
of  the  Old  Testament  and  on  the  peculiarities  of  the  language 
and  style  of  the  New  Testament,  resulting  from  this  version 
and  other  causes;  on  the  history  character  use  and  authority 


117 

of  the  ancient  version  of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments ;  on 
the  canons  of  Biblical  criticism ;  on  the  authenticity  of  the 
several  books  of  the  sacred  Code  ;  on  the  apocryphal  books  of 
both  Testaments ;  on  modern  translations  of  the  Bible,  more 
particularly  on  the  history  and  character  of  our  English  ver- 
sion ;  and  also  critical  Lectures  on  the  various  readings  and 
difficult  passages  in  the  sacred  writings. 

While  I  have  aimed  to  present  the  Scriptures  in  their  his- 
torical and  living  connection  with  Christ,  and  thus  to  estab- 
lish for  them  a  higher  value  than  such  as  comes  from  a  purely 
formal  authority,  I  have  never  reached  conclusions  as  re- 
gards their  nature  or  their  teachings  at  variance  with  the 
Creed  or  any  of  the  Christian  doctrines  expressed  in  it.  I 
desire  at  this  point  in  behalf  of  my  associates  and  myself  to 
correct  representations  made  by  one  of  the  Complainants  in 
his  plea,  of  the  meaning  of  certain  cited  passages  from  the 
articles  on  the  Scriptures  submitted  as  evidence  by  the 
prosecution. 

From  the  editorial  entitled  "  The  Bible  a  Theme  for  the 
Pulpit"  the  following  sentence  (And.  Rev.  v.  409)  was 
quoted  by  him  as  proof  that  the  article  advocates  a  covert 
opposition  to  the  orthodox  doctrine  of  inspiration,  on  the 
part  of  ministers.  "  A  minister  who  should  begin  to  preach 
a  series  of  sermons  about  the  Bible  by  saying  that  he  ex- 
pected to  show  that  the  notion  of  inspiration  in  which  his 
hearers  had  been  trained  was  an  erroneous  one,  would  prob- 
ably find  a  considerable  part  of  his  congregation  resolutely 
opposed  to  his  teaching  from  the  outset."  To  this  I  would 
add  the  sentence  which  follows  —  "  The  misunderstanding 
as  to  his  conception  of  the  Bible  created  b}^  his  injudicious 
remark  —  (injudicious  because  misrepresenting  the  real  nature 
of  the  proposed  teaching),  could  hardly  be  removed  by  any 
subsequent  explanations."  It  is  here  plainly  implied  that 
the  teaching  suggested  is  not  really  at  variance  with  the 
evangelical  view  of  the  Scriptures. 

The  following  sentences  which  I  will  not  stay  to  cite  make 
the  implication  yet  more  evident.  I  will  add  a  word, 
explaining  another  sentence  from  this  editorial  discussed  by 


118 

the  same  gentleman,  "  Then,  as  inspired  life  is  shown  ex- 
pressing itself  in  inspired  teaching,  —  as  for  example  the 
connection  between  Paul's  written  teaching  and  his  own 
inner  life  and  his  apostolic  work  is  traced,  or  the  apostolic 
tradition  is  shown  embodying  itself  in  the  Synoptic  Gospels 
—  the  conviction  will  gradually  be  created  that  the  Scripture 
is  the  vehicle  by  which  the  divine  revelation  is  conveyed  to 
men,  and  in  no  true  sense  the  revelation  itself."  The  word 
"  revelation  "  is  used  here  in  its  Scriptural  sense,  of  a  super- 
natural disclosure  of  truth  to  inspired  teachers.  Paul  e.g. 
says  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Galatians  that  God  revealed  his 
Son  in  him  that  he  might  preach  Him.  Paul's  epistles  bring 
the  revelation  which  he  received  to  us.  They  are  not  the 
revelation  itself,  for  it  expressed  itself  in  them.  There  are 
important  ends,  it  is  thought,  in  pointing  out  the  distinction. 
The  charge  that  it  is  derogatory  to  the  Scriptures  is  as  absurd 
as  would  be  the  claim  that  one  depreciated  Christ's  parables 
in  sajing  that  they  were  the  vehicle  by  which  his  ideas  were 
conveyed  to  the  mind  of  the  people.  I  must  also  correct  the 
same  gentleman's  interpretation  of  a  sentence  belonging  to  the 
article  on  the  Scriptures  in  "  Progressive  Orthodoxy  "  (p. 
221).  "  We  are  finding  out  that  the  seat  of  the  prophetic 
teaching  was  the  moral  and  religious  nature  of  the  inspired 
seer  alone."  It  was  elaborately  urged  that  this  refers  the 
teaching  of  the  prophets  to  a  purely  human  source.  Indeed 
the  word  source  was  used  as  a  synonym  for  "seat"  in  inter- 
preting the  sentence.  But  the  claim  could  hardly  have  been 
made  if  the  sentence  had  been  read  in  its  context.  For  it 
is  preceded  by  these  words. 

"  That  conception  of  the  prophet  which  regarded  him  as 
merely  a  voice,  uttering  words  which  his  own  inner  life  had 
no  share  in  producing  is  rapidly  disappearing  before  the 
intelligent  study  of  the  Old  Testament."  And  we  pass  over 
but  one  sentence  to  come  to  these  words  ..."  It  is  not  de- 
nied that  they  were  sometimes  evidently  conscious  of  receiv- 
ing special  messages  from  God.  Nor  would  we  claim  that  the 
conceptions  of  God's  kingdom  in  its  present  state  and  com- 
ing development,  given  them   by  the   Spirit,  were  so   thor- 


119 

oughly  wrought  into  their  own  thinking  as  the  apostles' 
conceptions  of  Christ  and  his  Kingdom  were  united  with 
their  own  thought." 

One  more  instance  of  misrepresentation  in  the  use  of  the 
same  article  must  be  pointed  out.  The  following  words  are 
found  on  page  231. 

"Whatever  else  comes  to  us  as  from  God  must  present  its 
credentials  to  Christ's  truth  in  our  minds  and  hearts." 

These  last  words,  it  is  said,  show  that  the  writer  recog- 
nized no  objective  divine  revelation.  But  let  me  read  the 
context. 

"If  Christ  is  the  supreme  and  final  Revelation,  He  is  the 
test  of  all  preceding  revelation.  If  we  accept  Him  as  God's 
supreme  and  final  revelation,  we  must  bring  preceding  reve- 
lation to  this  test.  We  cannot  escape  the  process  of  compari- 
son if  we  would.  He  brings  us  his  own  conception  of  God,  of 
life,  of  duty.  It  claims  to  cover  the  whole  horizon  of  truth, 
and  demands  possession  of  every  spiritual  and  rational  faculty. 
If  we  will  have  it  as  ours  we  must  hold  it  separate  from  and 
above  every  other.  Whatever  else  comes  to  us  as  from  God 
must  present  its  credentials  to  Christ's  truth  in  our  minds 
and  hearts." 

The  two  last  sentences  are  evidently  to  be  read  in  close 
connection.  Their  obvious  meaning  is  that  if  we  will  take 
Christ's  truth  into  our  hearts  we  must  give  it  royal  authority 
over  them,  and  make  it  judge  of  every  thing  that  claims  to 
come  empowered  by  God  to  enter  them.  Not  our  notions, 
but  Christ's  truth  within  us  is  to  rule  our  inner  being:. 

The  earlier  sentences  expressly  emphasize  the  supremacy  of 
the  objective  Christian  revelation. 

I  repeat  that  I  have  been  both  in  belief  and  teaching  true 
to  "  the  principles  of  the  Creed ; "  to  quote  words  of  Pro- 
fessor Stuart  cited  by  the  prosecution. 

I  will  frankly  admit  however  my  belief  that  the  Creed  it- 
self gives  me  a  degree  of  liberty  in  interpreting  its  tenets. 
In  the  pledge  which  it  exacts  the  promise  "  to  open  and  ex- 
plain the  Scriptures  to  my  pupils  with  integrity  and  faithful- 
ness "  precedes  that  "  to  maintain  and  inculcate  the  Christian 


120 

faith,  as  expressed  in  the  Creed  by  me  now  repeated."  That 
promise  has,  I  conceive,  especial  force  for  those  who  are 
called  to  teach  the  Bible  in  the  Seminary.  They  at  any  rate 
are  required  by  it  to  make  the  exposition  of  the  Scriptures 
"according  to  the  best  light  God  shall  give"  them,  the 
shaping  and  paramount  principle  of  their  teaching.  They 
are  to  explain  the  Bible  with  integrity  ;  giving  no  interpre- 
tations but  such  as  are  the  fruit  of  their  own  study  and  re- 
search, and  carry  their  own  conviction ;  they  are  to  explain 
it  with  faithfulness,  counting  subservience  to  human  opinion 
unfaithfulness  not  only  to  the  Scripture,  but  to  the  Seminary 
which  requires  a  fair  exposition  of  the  word  of  God.  This 
to  men  who  like  the  Founders,  regarded  the  Bible  as  the 
depository  of  divine  truth  must  have  implied  the  expecta- 
tion of  a  progressive  unfolding  of  that  truth  on  the  part  of 
the  teachers  of  sacred  literature.  It  would  have  been  absurd 
to  require  a  promise  to  "  open  and  expound  the  Scriptures 
with  integrity  and  faithfulness,"  if  the  conclusions  reached 
were  expected  to  be  absolutely  identical  with  those  already 
arrived  at  and  set  forth.  Indeed,  the  word  "  open  "  seems  to 
imply  an  advance  into  undeveloped  riches  of  divine  truth. 

If  I  am  correct  in  believing  that  the  Founders  laid  this 
promise  of  a  progressive  teaching  of  Scripture  upon  the 
Biblical  teachers  in  the  Seminary,  I  may  assume  that  they 
expected  those  teachers  to  interpret  the  creed  in  the  light 
of  that  promise.  To  claim  that  they  regarded  their  state- 
ment of  belief  as  an  absolutely  perfect  representation  of  the 
doctrinal  contents  of  the  Bible  is  to  impugn  not  only  their 
good  judgment  but  their  sincerity,  since  they  have  put  the 
Scriptures  above  the  creed  as  "  the  only  perfect  rule  of 
faith  and  practice."  To  put  such  an  interpretation  upon 
the  creed  therefore  as  would  prevent  the  teachers  in  the 
Seminary  from  keeping  abreast  of  contemporaneous  Biblical 
Scholarship  by  the  use  of  legitimate  methods  (if  such  an 
interpretation  were  possible)  would  thwart  their  wishes  both 
h}'  making  the  Creed,  not  the  Bible  the  ultimate  test  of  the 
teaching  of  the  institution  as  well  as  the  "only  perfect  rule  " 
of  its  professors'  belief,  and  by  robbing  its  Biblical  instruc- 


121 

tion  of  that  manifest  and  avowed  loyalty  to  the  Scriptures 
as  the  one  unquestionable  and  paramount  authority  which 
the  Founders  intended  it  should  have. 

It  is  not  meant  of  course,  that  the  several  articles  of  the 
creed  have  not  a  meaning  for  every  one  who  teaches  under 
it.  No  one  could  claim  e.g.  that  one  could  go  on  teaching  in 
the  Seminary  who  had  become  satisfied  that  the  Scriptures 
furnished  no  reason  for  believing  in  the  doctrine  of  the 
Trinity.  The  enactment  requiring  a  renewed  subscription 
at  the  expiration  of  each  five  years;  —  which  recognizes  a 
necessary  movement  of  mind  engaged  in  the  study  of  divine 
truth,  provides  that  such  movement  shall  be  bounded  by  the 
great  doctrinal  lines  plainly  indicated  by  the  Creed.  I  for 
one  would  not  retain  my  position  five  years  nor  one  year, 
had  I  abandoned  any  of  the  doctrines  enunciated  there. 
But  I  do  not  think  retaining  it  inconsistent  with  the  belief 
that  the  Scriptures  may  yet  afford  the  means  of  giving  one 
or  more  of  those  doctrines  a  better  expression.  For  I  am 
sure  that  such  Biblical  teaching  as  they  exact  by  solemn 
pledge  implies  this  belief. 

I  close  by  declaring  my  full  and  hearty  belief  "  that  the 
word  of  God,  contained  in  the  Scriptures  of  the  Old  and 
New  Testament  is  the  only  perfect  rule  of  faith  and  prac- 
tice," and  by  denying  that  I  have  in  the  lecture-room  or  out 
of  it  made  statements  inconsistent  with  this  belief,  or  incon- 
sistent with  my  promise  to  "open  and  explain  the  Scriptures 
to  my  pupils  with  integrity  and  faithfulness,"  to  "maintain 
and  inculcate  the  Christian  faith  as  expressed  in  the  Creed 
of  the  Seminary,"  together  with  all  the  other  doctrines  and 
duties  of  our  Holy  Religion,  so  far  as  may  appertain  to  my 
office,  according  to  the  best  light  God  shall  give  me." 


STATEMENT   OF   PROFESSOR   J.    W.    CHURCHILL. 


May  it  please  your  Reverend  and  Honorable  Board:  — 

In  filing  my  exception  to  the  charges  against  me  for  hold- 
ing, maintaining,  and  inculcating  opinions  that  are  contrary 
to  the  Associate  Creed  of  Andover  Theological  Seminary, 
I  desire  that  it  be  understood  as  explicitly  as  language 
can  express  my  position  that  I  am  not  seeking  to  evade 
in  the  slightest  degree  my  share  of  the  editorial  responsibility 
in  the  purpose  and  conduct  of  "  The  Andover  Review ; "  or  to 
avoid  whatsoever  consequences  may  follow  from  an  adverse 
decision  against  my  co-editors  upon  the  citations  from  the 
Review  as  evidence  of  teaching  and  maintaining  opinions  in 
nonconformity  to  the  Seminary  Creed.  The  fate  of  one 
editor  is  the  fate  of  all  the  editors.  Nor  do  I  wish  to  suggest 
the  inference  that  I  am  not  in  perfect  sympathy  with  the 
spirit  and  aim  that  animate  and  control  the  movement  and 
tendency  in  contemporary  religious  thought  known  as  Pro- 
gressive Orthodoxy.  I  adhere  to  the  principles  of  the  move- 
ment, although  I  do  not  accept  every  inference  from  some 
of  its  positions.  Neither  let  it  be  inferred  that  I  consider  my 
adherence  to  Progressive  Orthodoxy  as  inimical  to  the  Asso- 
ciate Creed,  which  I  conscientiously  subscribed  to  on  my  in- 
auguration into  the  Jones  Professorship  of  Elocution,  which 
I  have  since  twice  repeated  as  an  act  of  solemn  obligation  in 
the  presence  of  the  Trustees  of  the  Seminary,  and  to  which 
I  am  still  loyal  as  it  has  been  interpreted  and  administered 
for  more  than  half  a  century.  Nor  do  I  desire,  in  filing  this 
exception,  to  add  to  the  already  numerous  complications  of 
this  perplexing  public  Inquiry  into  the  Orthodoxy  of  the  ed- 


123 

itors  of  "  The  Andover  Review."  Much  less  do  I  wish  to  em- 
barrass your  reverend  and  honorable  Board  with  untimely  or 
irrelevant  demands  upon  your  attention.  Still  less  would  I 
convey  the  impression  that  I  do  not  wish,  or  that  I  ought  not, 
to  be  placed  under  your  supervision,  or  that  I  resist  any  claim 
that  your  reverend  and  honorable  Body  may  lawfully  make 
for  its  Visitorial  jurisdiction  over  the  Jones  Professorship. 

But  the  question  occasionally  has  been  discussed  in  high 
quarters,  and  especially  during  the  last  few  months,  whether 
or  not  the  Jones  Professorship  is  strictly  under  the  control  of 
the  Visitors  of  the  Associate  Foundation.  In  the  Statutes 
of  the  various  Chairs  of  Instruction  that  have  been  founded 
since  the  establishment  of  the  Associate  Creed,  there  seem 
to  be  three  classes  of  conditions :  one  class,  represented  by 
the  Taylor  Professorship  of  Biblical  Theology  and  History, 
now  held  by  Professor  Taylor,  distinctly  places  the  chair 
under  the  Visitorial  supervision  of  your  reverend  and  hon- 
orable Board ;  a  second  class,  represented  by  the  Stone 
Professorship  of  the  Relations  of  Christianity  to  the  Secular 
Sciences,  now  held  by  Professor  Gulliver,  distinctly  states 
the  exemption  of  the  chair  from  your  Visitorial  control ;  the 
third  class,  represented  'by  the  Jones  Professorship  of  Elo- 
cution, makes  no  reference  whatsoever  to  the  relation  of  the 
chair  to  any  Visitorial  supervision. 

It  is  for  the  sole  purpose  of  permanently  determining  the 
question  of  your  Visitorial  relation  to  the  Jones  Professor- 
ship that  I  filed  my  eleventh  exception.  I  have  availed  my- 
self of  the  occasion  of  this  trial  to  submit  the  test ;  because, 
if  the  Jones  Professorship  is  not  under  your  Visitorial  juris- 
diction, then  the  complainants  have  no  case  against  me  upon 
which  your  reverend  and  honorable  Board  can  adjudicate  ;  if, 
on  the  other  hand,  it  shall  be  decided  that  the  Jones  Profess- 
orship is  under  your  Visitorial  supervision,  I  shall  cheer- 
fully conform  to  your  requirements  in  the  premises,  and  shall 
respond  to  the  charges  preferred  against  me  in  such  a  manner 
as  your  Board  shall  direct. 

Since  it  has  been  determined  that  it  is  advisable  for  me  to 
make  a  statement  in  connection  with  the  statements  of  my 


124 

colleagues,  I  have  thrown  together  this  morning  the  few- 
expressions  following  that  partially  ma}'  answer  the  present 
purpose  of  meeting  the  charges  preferred  against  me. 

It  will  be  remembered  by  your  reverend  and  honorable 
Board  that  in  reply  to  your  requisition  of  July  27,  1886,  to 
present  a  written  answer  to  the  original  charges  within  fif- 
teen days  that  I  conformed  to  your  requirements  within  a 
very  few  days  after  the  allotted  time.  The  reply  was  made 
before  the  indicted  professors  had  engaged  counsel  to  defend 
them  ;  but  this  fact  was  overlooked,  inadvertently,  I  am  will- 
ing to  believe,  in  the  counsel's  argument  for  the  prosecution 
in  the  case  of  my  colleague,  Professor  Smyth,  and  through 
the  omission  an  erroneous  and  injurious  impression  must  have 
been  conveyed  to  you  and  to  the  public  concerning  our  action 
in  the  early  history  of  this  case. 

You  will  also  recall  the  fact  that,  in  answer  to  the  Amended 
Charges,  there  was  presented  to  you  a  written  reply  from  each 
of  my  colleagues,  and  that  no  reply  was  sent  in  by  me,  but 
that  I  added  to  the  general  Bill  of  Exceptions  a  special  ex- 
ception claiming  that  my  Professorship  was  not  under  your 
jurisdiction.  I  withheld  my  answer  to  the  Amended  Charges 
until  I  should  learn  your  decision  on  the  point  in  question. 
Had  I  received  the  decision  before  this  Court  opened  the  case 
of  Professor  Smyth  I  should  have  sent  in  my  written  reply 
couched  in  the  same  language  that  was  employed  in  the 
replies  of  my  colleagues.  I  should  also  have  prepared  a 
more  complete  and  careful  statement  than  this,  and  of  a  dif- 
ferent character,  to  meet  the  demands  of  the  present  time 
and  place.  But,  inasmuch  as  no  decision  has  been  rendered 
upon  my  special  exception,  and  also  for  the  sake  of  brevity, 
I  ask  permission  of  your  reverend  and  honorable  Board  to 
refer  to  the  answer  of  my  colleagues  as  being  identical  with 
my  own ;  since  what  was  common  to  those  answers  is  ex- 
pressed in  the  same  language,  and  was  discussed  and  drawn 
up  in  my  presence,  and  with  my  voluntary  co-operation  as 
being  equally  indicted  with  them. 

I  would  also  respectfully  ask  permission,  under  the  circum- 
stances, to  refer  for  ampler  defence  to  the  exposition  of  the 


125 

Seminary  Creed  as  given  by  the  Rev.  D.  T.  Fiske,  D.D.,  the 
venerable  and  honored  President  of  the  Board  of  Trustees  of 
Andover  Theological   Seminary.      I  doubt  not  that   I    can 
safely  rely  upon  your  familiarity  with  that  document.     My 
intellectual  and  moral  attitude  towards  the  Creed  is  exactly 
denned  in  Dr.  Fiske's  Exposition.    The  high  character,  theo- 
logical attainments,  wisely  conservative  temper,  and  candid 
spirit  of  Dr.  Fiske,  are  a  sufficient  guaranty  to  me  of  a  com- 
petent and  accurate  representation  of  the  Creed  in  his  account 
of  its  origin,  its  subsequent  history,  its  character,  the  signifi- 
cance of  subscription  to  it,  the  history  of  its  administration, 
and  the  source  of  responsibility  in  deciding  the  orthodoxy  of 
the  Professor  in  relation  to  the  Creed.     I  refer  to  Dr.  Fiske's 
Exposition  and  rely  upon  it,  because  its  original  intention 
was   neither   polemical   in   tone,  nor   inimical   in   its    spirit 
towards  any  individual  connected  with  the  Board  of  Instruc- 
tion or  of  Administration.     It  was  not  written  for  any  Star- 
chamber  assembly  in  secret   conclave  with  the  purpose  of 
ultimately  making  it  an  iron  heel  to  crush  the  advocate  of 
some  obnoxious  doctrine :  it  was  written  solely  for  the  infor- 
mation of  the  North  Essex  Ministerial  Association  with  which 
he  is  connected,  and  with  no  intention  of  subsequent  publica- 
tion.    Dr.  Fiske's  paper  was  entirely  successful  in  removing 
previous  unfortunate  misconceptions,  and  conveyed  much  val- 
uable information  to  his  ministerial  associates.     That  accom- 
plished theologian,  the  late  Rev.  Raymond  H.  Seeley,  D.D.,  of 
Haverhill,  gave  it  his  cordial  endorsement.     The  Exposition 
afforded  such  general  satisfaction  that  it  was  published  at  the 
request  of  the  Association.     The  Rev.  Ray  Palmer,  D.D.,  a 
former  Visitor  of  the  Seminary,  has  declared  Dr.  Fiske's  Essay 
to  be  "  a  fair  and  honest  statement  of  the  essential  facts  of 
the  case,  and  well  adapted  to  set  the  public  —  those   who 
wish  to  be  set  right  —  in  a  position  to  judge  of  the  whole 
matter."     He  affirms  that  the  view  of  the  Creed,  so  clearly 
and  ably  presented,  and  the  meaning  of  subscription  to  it 
was  that  which  he  himself  entertained  when  he  subscribed 
to  it.     "  It  was  that,"  he  adds,  "of  Drs.  D wight  and  Smith 
when  they  became  Visitors."     (See  Prefatory  Note  to  Dr. 


126 

Fiske's  Exposition  :  Cupples,  Upham  &  Co.,  Boston,  Dec.  17, 
1886.) 

Upon  my  election  to  office  in  the  Seminary  I  consulted  my 
honored  professor  of  Sacred  Rhetoric  concerning  the  manner 
in  which  the  Creed  was  to  be  taken,  for  I  had  often  heard  it 
spoken  of  as  an  iron-clad  affair  of  a  past  age,  which  had  mostly 
lost  its  force  and  was  only  loosely  binding  upon  the  teachers 
of  the  present.  Professor  Phelps  answered :  "  You  must 
take  the  Creed  as  the  rest  of  us  have  taken  it  —  in  its  historic 
sense,  and  for  substance  of  doctrine."  His  explanation  of 
those  terms  (which  I  do  not  now  recall  in  his  language)  sat- 
isfied me  that  an  honest  man  could  take  the  Creed  honestly  ; 
but  it  also  disclosed  to  me  the  fact  that  the  Creed  required 
interpretation. 

Accepting  Dr.  Fiske's  exposition  as  my  vade  mecum  in  the 
interpretation  of  the  Creed,  I  affirm  my  deliberate  and  con- 
scientious conviction  that  if  the  Creed  had  the  inherent 
power  to  effect  the  union  of  conflicting  schools  of  religious 
thought  in  the  days  of  its  origin,  it  has  the  very  same  inher- 
ent power  in  the  present  day  to  prevent  division  and  separa- 
tion. 

I  cannot  suppose  that  my  personal  views  on  the  Ethics  of 
Creed-Subscription  are  of  the  slightest  importance  to  your 
reverend  and  Honorable  Board.  Nevertheless,  they  are  of 
vital  importance  to  me  ;  and  I  find  myself  in  such  hearty  accord 
with  the  principles  of  Creed  subscription  as  enunciated  by 
Professor  Austin  Phelps,  that  I  venture  to  make  reference  to 
the  chapter  in  one  of  his  works,  —  "  My  Portfolio,"  and  en- 
titled the  "Rights  of  Believers  in  Ancient  Creeds."  Many 
of  the  illustrations  in  that  clear,  comprehensive,  and  conser- 
vative discussion  are  drawn  from  the  Seminary  Creed  and  the 
history  of  its  administration  (see  p.  41  et  seq.).  I  may  safely 
assume  your  acquaintance  with  Professor  Phelps's  views  upon 
this  important  topic.  I  refer  to  Dr.  Fiske  and  to  Professor 
Phelps  as  reflecting  more  perfectly  and  more  vividly  my  own 
views,  and  for  the  purpose  of  brevity  at  this  late  stage  of 
the  proceedings. 

In  this  manner,  also,  I  express  my  sincere  reverence  for  the 


127 

framers  of  the  Creed  in  their  strenuous  efforts  to  secure  a 
true  expression  of  theological  doctrine.  As  time  goes  on, 
my  veneration  for  those  wise  and  able  men  is  deepened,  and 
my  confidence  in  the  greatness  of  their  purpose,  and  my 
admiration  for  their  achievement,  are  confirmed.  Their  elabo- 
rate formulary  is  not  an  antiquated  relic,  but  is  an  impressive 
and  living  memorial  of  their  insight  into  religious  Truth,  and 
of  their  theological  prowess.  They  were  guided  by  the  prom- 
ised Spirit  of  Truth,  who  has  never  been  absent  from  the 
church  in  its  work  of  creed-construction,  and  who  is  still 
in  the  hearts  of  men  that  are  called  upon  to  interpret  the 
religious  symbols  of  a  former  time. 

I  am  glad  to  express  my  sympathy  with  the  doctrinal  con- 
clusions at  which  they  arrived.  Every  theological  and  Scrip- 
tural fact  they  registered  in  that  Creed  is  true,  and  always  will 
be  true.  Their  skill  in  putting  those  truths  into  logical  and 
vital  relations  is  remarkable,  and  it  remains  a  noble  expres- 
sion of  the  tenets  of  consistent  Calvinism.  But  who  shall 
call  it  a  final  expression  of  truth  ?  It  contains  truth  so  far 
as  it  goes,  but  it  does  not  exhaust  it.  Every  Creed  is  a 
monument  of  man's  imperfection.  I  believe  this  Creed,  but 
I  never  can  relinquish  my  right  to  think  upon  theological 
topics  independently  of  the  Creed,  and  outside  of  its  terms, 
provided  that,  in  the  use  of  my  conclusions,  I  am  not  in- 
harmonious with  a  sound  interpretation  of  the  Creed  or 
antagonistic  to  it.  The  responsibility  of  subscription  ulti- 
mately rests  upon  the  Professor  himself.  Any  man  likely  to 
be  elected  to  any  chair  in  the  Seminary  is  supposed  to  be 
intelligent  and  honest  enough  to  decide  for  himself  whether 
he  can  or  cannot  conscientiously  subscribe,  or  maintain  his 
subscription,  to  the  Creed;  and  no  man  has  a  right  to  go 
behind  the  subscriber's  conscience,  or  try  to  displace  it  by 
substituting  some  other  man's  interpretation. 

In  saying  this,  I  mean  to  imply  the  inadequacy  of  this,  and 
any  existing  Creed,  to  cover  all  the  subjects  of  theological 
inquiry  and  discussion  that  constantly  emerge  in  the  gradual 
development  of  the  aspects  of  Truth.  Religion  is  a  life,  the 
life  of  God  in  the  soul  of  man ;  but  Theology  is  the  Science 


128 

of  Religion.  Theology,  with  all  the  sciences,  is  bound  to 
regard  changing  data,  and  constantly  must  be  passed  under 
review  for  revision  and  re-adjustment.  There  is  new  light 
in  Philosophy,  new  light  in  History,  new  light  in  Science, 
new  light  in  Criticism,  that  is  constantly  breaking  forth.  If 
fresh  light  in  an}T  of  these  departments  of  thought  and  en- 
deavor that  are  organically  related  to  the  facts  and  truths  of 
theological  science  can  be  allowed  to  flash  out  in  Yale  Semi- 
nary or  in  Union,  —  and  it  is  flashing  there  —  then  I  want 
its  brightness  in  Andover,  to  make  the  Creed  still  more  an 
illuminating  power ;  and  through  Andover  to  shine  in  upon 
the  spiritual  darkness  of  the  nations.  If  a  narrow  construc- 
tion of  the  Creed  is  to  act  as  an  extinguisher,  or  as  a  min- 
imizing agent  in  denying  me  the  benefits  or  the  use  of  any 
new  light,  I  shall  see  to  it  that  I  do  not  suffer  the  condemna- 
tion of  those  who  love  darkness  rather  than  light. 

Wonder  has  often  been  expressed  that  a  Professor  of  Elo- 
cution should  be  accused  of  heretical  teaching  of  Theology. 
My  offence  arises  in  the  fact  that  I  am  a  responsible  co- 
editor  of  the  heretical  "  Andover  Review."  I  have  already 
expressed  my  willingness  to  share  every  thing  that  editorial 
responsibility  carries  with  it.  As  editors  we  work  and  ex- 
press ourselves  in  the  plural  and  not  in  the  singular.  In 
explanation  of  my  arraignment  it  has  been  said  in  pleasantry 
that  I  have  been  indicted  for  giving  to  the  enunciation  of 
"  Sheol "  a  circumflex  inflection  as  expressing  doubt.  Not 
so  ;  on  the  contrary,  and  all  jesting  apart  at  a  time  of  serious- 
ness, I  enunciate  "  Sheol,"  and  teach  my  pupils  to  enunciate 
it,  and  every  word  symbolizing  a  revealed  fact  of  solemn 
import,  with  the  firm,  downward  inflection  expressive  of  the 
affirmation  of  the  reality  of  a  positive  personal  conviction. 
Not  one  of  my  colleagues  is  so  poor  a  theologian  or  so  un- 
skilful a  speaker  as  to  confound  a  downright  inflection  with 
a  circumflex. 

I  have  not  yet  found  the  term  "  Probation  "  a  necessity 
for  my  theology  or  my  view  of  life,  here  or  hereafter.  I  do 
not  find  it  in  the  Creed,  excepting  as  it  refers  to  Adam's  pro- 
bation in  his  relation  as  the  federal  head  of  the  race ;  nor 


129 

is  it  a  biblical  word,  although  the  idea  is  admitted  to  be 
scriptural.  I  have  been  accustomed  to  regard  this  earthly 
scene  and  God's  relation  to  it,  not  as  a  court-room,  nor  even  a 
school-room,  but  as  a  scene  of  moral  education  in  which  the 
Father  of  Spirits  is  training  the  nations  and  individuals  com- 
posing His  great  human  family  for  the  Eternal  Life  beyond 
life.  As  I  think  I  stated  in  my  former  answer  to  you,  I  cannot 
believe  that  every  soul's  life  in  the  Fatherhood  of  God  will 
have  its  moral  discipline  ended  with  its  earthly  career;  but, 
undoubtedly,  there  are  souls  existing  both  in  this  world  and 
the  next  that  forever  will  resist  the  Divine  purpose  and 
means  in  discipline.  But  it  is  not  needful  that  I  should 
enlarge  upon  this  view  in  order  to  guard  it,  or  to  defend 
it,  or  to  show  its  harmony  with  the  Creed.  The  spiritual 
results  in  holy  character  in  the  great  multitude  of  the  Re- 
deemed in  the  Eternal  World  are  the  same  in  my  view  of 
the  future  life  that  the  advocates  of  a  continued  probation 
for  the  mass  of  the  evangelically  Unprivileged  hope  to  see 
gloriously  realized. 

I  know  the  history  of  the  so-called  Andover  hypothesis 
of  Continued  Probation,  from  the  first  syllable  of  its  utter- 
ance to  the  present  hour.  I  have  been  in  most  intimate 
relations,  day  in  and  day  out,  year  in  and  year  out,  with  its 
supporters.  I  know  a  hundred  times  better  than  those  who 
have  misunderstood  and  consequently  have  misrepresented 
them,  the  spirit  and  manner,  the  limitations,  lights  and 
shades,  and  the  conditions  of  development  in  which  the 
hypothesis  has  been  maintained.  But  little  value  may  be 
attached  to  a  personal  opinion  ;  nevertheless,  the  circum- 
stances of  this  public  statement  make  it  proper  for  me  to  say 
that,  inasmuch  as  I  am  convinced  that  this  hypothesis  does 
not  militate  against  the  doctrines  of  the  Depravity  of  Man, 
the  Necessity  of  Regeneration,  the  Trinity  of  the  Godhead, 
the  Universal  Atonement  of  Christ,  or  the  Eternity  of 
Future  Rewards  and  Punishments,  which  doctrines  are  au- 
thoritatively declared  to  be  the  distinguishing,  essential,  and 
pivotal  doctrines  in  the  system  of  Truth  which  the  Seminary 
Creed,  and  all  the  great  historic  confessions  affirm,  —  there- 
fore, in  view  of  such  harmony  with  these  tests  of  Orthodoxy, 


130 

I  earnestly  claim  for  my  colleagues  their  liberty  of  opinion, 
teaching,  and  discussion  concerning  this  hypothesis.  More 
than  this :  I  believe  that  there  is  Reason  and  Scripture  in  it. 
In  making  answer  in  this  special  form  demanded  by  the 
present  exigency  of  the  case,  I  trust  that  I  have  again 
affirmed  my  sincere,  reverent,  and  hearty  loyalty  to  the 
elaborate  symbol  that  I  am  called  upon  to  sign  as  a  Pro- 
fessor in  Andover  Theological  Seminary.  Whatsoever  minor 
diversities  of  formal  expression  or  of  individual  interpreta- 
tion my  colleagues  or  myself  may  demand  as  our  rights  as 
believers  in  the  Creed,  I  sincerely  believe  that  they  are  held 
in  accordance  with  sound  and  recognized  principles  of  Creed- 
Subscription.  I  sincerely  believe  that  such  modifications  of 
belief  or  statement  do  not  impair  the  integrity  of  doctrine 
as  expressed  in  our  authoritative  standard.  They  are  simply 
changed  aspects  of  unchangeable  truths.  I  sincerely  believe 
that  the  intention  of  the  Framers  of  this  Creed  was  to 
make  forever  secure  the  teaching  of  a  large,  an  enlarging, 
and  a  tolerant  Orthodoxy ;  that  they  were  intent  upon  mak- 
ing the  teaching  in  the  Seminary  a  synonym  for  a  true,  con- 
sistent, and  catholic  theology.  Moreover,  I  sincerely  and 
intelligently  affirm  that  there  exists  in  the  religious  com- 
munity a  wide-spread  and  positive  judgment,  that  organized 
opposition  to  competent  and  conscientious  teaching  on  the 
doctrinal  basis  laid  by  the  Founders  of  the  Seminary,  is 
inconsistent  with  a  true  liberty  of  teaching  within  the  limits 
of  the  Creed  ;  and  that  such  organized  opposition  is  sub- 
versive of  the  stability  of  true  theology,  —  a  permanence  that 
must  ever  be  conditioned  upon  freedom  of  theological  teach- 
ing and  discussion  as  an  inalienable  right  under  any  creed 
of  the  protestant  faith. 


Date  Due 

fAC«t) 

"^ 

Mnrrr* 

***St*K, 

I 

vf&e***9*^ 

JUL  ^g 

989 

"^ii  i 

| 

f> 

1 

